Sleeping Dragons
by Snape's Nightie
Summary: Sequel to Going Straight, SSLM. Severus Snape has triumphed over adversity to become a man who has it all: respect, power, a lightning bolt scar and the man of his dreams. But just when he dares to relax, Trouble appears from a wholly unexpected source...
1. Chapter 1

This is the sequel to my fic "Going Straight". It's not absolutely necessary to have read GS as there's a recap near the beginning, but this might make a bit more sense if so. The main points are that it took a long time to win the war, Harry didn't kill Voldemort until he was 24 years old. Lucius spent 8 years in prison after the end of OoTP, during which Severus survived Harry's clumsy attempt to kill him, convinced everyone he was on the right side and ended up becoming head of Magical Law Enforcement. (Set a snake to catch a snake, perhaps?)

Pairings: SS/LM, NW(neé B, previously M)/AW. NT/KS.

This story features SLASH, ie male/male relationships. If you don't like the idea, then please do not read on.

Not explicit, but there will be something which many might consider squicky later on (nothing involving children or animals, promise) - I will warn nearer the time.

Compliant with HBP but not DH!

Prologue.

Summer 1959.

Buddy Holly had only been in his grave for a few months and Eileen felt it was a great shame that the young man was probably already spinning in it. The frightful wailing and twanging which had been emanating from upstairs ever since Toby had won the ancient guitar in a bet involving Saturday's Leeds United match was enough to wake Merlin himself, let alone the more recently deceased.

Fortunately, her husband's absorption with his new hobby meant that he was far more interested in murdering some poor woman named Peggy-Sue than what she was up to in the cellar. The potion had taken weeks to mature, being something of a more heavyweight relative of Polyjuice, but finally the horrible smells, violent bubbling and occasional hissing had produced a slimy greyish gloop which matched the description of what she was trying to brew in the book of darkest potions. The stuff was illegal, of course, but Eileen wasn't too concerned, having flouted so many conventions over the years that being forbidden to do anything was now more of a challenge than an order.

This sinister potion was necessary, and that was that.

She picked up the yellow toenail with tweezers and dropped it into the cauldron, which, quite understandably, spat and fizzed objections at her. It was more usual to add a hair, but Eileen had been concerned that the layers of lacquer which had probably built up over the years as a result of Toby's efforts at sculpting himself an Elvis-quiff may have an adverse effect. This was far too important a matter to take risks with, so Toby's stinky nail clippings it had to be.

Ladling out a gobletful of the dark and dangerous brew, she placed a gentle hand on her curving lower abdomen and frowned.

"Look, I'm sorry about this," she informed the tiny thing inside. "It's for the best."

…….

2007

Lucius Malfoy sat cross-legged in the middle of the sitting-room, surrounded on all sides by pieces of fabric in slightly differing shades of purple.

He was currently working on a complete overhaul of Minerva McGonagall's kitchen, but found his abilities stretched to the limit by the demands of his meticulous client. Purple, he had pointed out on numerous occasions, was simply not a kitchen colour, but the old bag was as determined as she was colourblind, so here he sat, struggling to maintain his reputation for good taste when all about him had so obviously lost theirs.

Until recently, Lucius would never have considered a career in interior design, yet so many aspects of his life over the last decade had been so very unlikely he had stopped having any fixed ideas about anything and started going with the flow. The eight years in Azkaban, for instance, had been rather unexpected. As had the Dark Lord's defeat, the destruction of Malfoy Manor and the ruination of his hopes, dreams and entire life. After such sensational reversals of the World Order as taught to him by his late father, he was perhaps less amazed than one might imagine to discover that, during his stay in prison, things had got even crazier.

His wife had got a job and shacked up with the widowed Arthur Weasley, Shacklebolt had succeeded Scrimgeour to become the first sensible Minister of Magic in about 250 years and Severus Snape had undergone the comeback of the century. Going from being the hunted, detested murder of Albus Dumbledore to legendary hero and Head of Magical Law Enforcement had been a long and challenging journey, even with the bright curse-scar emblazoned across his face to remind everyone that he was the Wizard-Who-Lived. Yet he had succeeded.

Strangest of all was the fact that he and Snape were in love.

He supposed that love was known for being a fickle creature, but surely something which was wrong on so many levels ought not to feel so right. The attachment may have been formed when Snape had rescued him from Azkaban, given him a home and taken care of him in this chaotic new Britain which Lucius scarcely recognised, and it was possible that Lucius' old attraction to power had deepened his attraction to the slippery politician. It may simply have been because his need to be adored was now being met on a daily basis by a man who had turned out to have been madly in love with him since adolescence. More romantic people would just declare that love could always find a way, and that cupid's arrows could not be deflected by social barriers, or indeed gender ones. Somehow, the irritable and ill-bred half-blood traitor Severus Snape had become his world, and even the sound of that oily, assonant name felt like home.

Lucius' rehabilitation into polite society was not yet complete. A mere two years after his release from jail, the time was not quite right for him to appear as the official consort of such a senior Ministry official, though everyone knew what was happening behind closed doors. At Narcissa and Weasley's wedding the previous year, one or two people had kindly suggested that he and Severus ought to marry, now that the recent changes to the law allowed same sex civil partnerships. Back then, the ex-convict had been relieved when his lover had quietly declared that there was no need to rush. Though their devotion to each other had grown strong and consistent, Lucius still occasionally felt as bewildered by their domestic life as he did by everything else.

A whooshing noise from the fireplace announced the return of the wizard in question and Lucius looked up with a delighted grin, still rather soppily pleased to see him after spending a whole day apart.

"Hello, darling," he said.

"Bloody stupid idiots, what on earth are they doing, as if this will make any difference to anything, don't they have anything better to do, I mean for Merlin's sake…" Snape chuntered his way across the room, dutifully bending to bestow a kiss on Lucius' forehead as he stomped past without breaking his concentration. He flung open the bedroom door to change and continued. "…taxpayers' money, they ought to be thinking about the National Healing Service rather than this nonsense…"

Knowing it was futile to try and engage his lover before he had ranted away the cares of the day, Lucius clicked his fingers to make sure that Peggy knew her master was home and dinner could be started, then turned back to his swatches.

Half an hour later, the two men sat before a plate of some dreary muggle dish, which Severus seemed to prefer to proper food, and intelligent conversation could begin.

"How was your day, dear?" asked Lucius, reaching for the cheap red sauce which two years of cohabiting with a lower-class half-blood had taught him to eat with everything.

"Blasted imbeciles!" opined Snape, between chews. "So. How's Minerva?"

"A lost cause," moaned Lucius. "Retirement bores her, so she's being obnoxious to any poor innocent unable to flee fast enough."

"If she's such a control freak, I don't know why she engaged you," he commented.

"Her nieces bullied her into it," he sneered. "They thought I could liven up that dreary old hovel of hers. They read in Witch Weekly that it's incredibly fashionable to have a genuine Malfoy interior."

"I can believe it. I do so enjoy a genuine Malfoy in my own interior," smirked Snape, with a leer.

"Well, I should hope so," he ran a sock foot playfully up Snape's calf. "Now, what have your esteemed colleagues done to outrage you today?"

"They have decided to go ahead with that utter buffoon Dawlish's plan to add another dimension of security to the Ministry buildings, as though it isn't already nearing the point of ridicule!" he speared a sausage with some force. "Nobody else seems to mind that we waste approximately 2 working hours a day either going through security checks, checking the efficiency of security checks, or holding meetings to check whether the security checks are being properly checked by the checkers. I thought I held office in order to combat crime and the use of dark magic, not to be in direct competition with Gringott's security detail."

"So what is Dawlish suggesting?"

"In an effort to reduce the use of polyjuice or other aids to impersonation, he wants all personnel to submit a DNA sample, which can be _checked_ on entry and exit, or when moving between departments," he scowled at his plate. "Which means that each time I pop up to Kingsley's office, or down to discuss something with Arthur, I will have to pass through yet another bloody checkpoint!"

"They must be concerned about something," Lucius reasoned. The sooner all the arguments were exhausted, the sooner they could have an early night. After spending all afternoon in the gloom of a Hebridean stone cottage on a storm-tossed, windswept cliff, being harangued by a grumpy old woman who still hadn't got over the whole Death Eater thing, what Lucius really needed was some hot lovin'.

"As head of the MLE, I can categorically state that there is no known threat to the security of the Ministry or the public outside the ordinary at the present time," he recited acidly. Then sighed. "Though I suppose I have to publicly condone this pointless development, as a deterrent at the very least." He laid down knife and fork, and with them, Lucius noted, his irritability.

His shoulders relaxed as he leaned back in his chair, his brow smoothed and his eyes took on the more tender look they assumed when properly focussing on the man he had loved so much for so long. Lucius rose from his seat and pulled Severus over to the sofa, arranging them both to his satisfaction and settling down for a little light kissing.

"Stop that," murmured Severus, as he always did when Malfoy dropped little pecks of adoration on his large, hooked nose.

"No," Lucius batted away the protesting hands and nipped at the end, as he always did. "I love it."

Snape made a low-pitched grumble, which may or may not have been 'dunderhead.'

xxx

Author's note: So, perhaps not the greatest of beginnings, but you have to start somewhere. For once I have the plot all mapped out in advance and many of the chapters already written (shock horror!), so I can say with confidence that it _is definitely _going somewhere. Hopefully.  
I'd love to know what you thought. Lots of love, Nightie x


	2. Chapter 2

Whoops, forgot my disclaimer last time!

Characters and situations in this fic belong to JK Rowling and not to me. I do not have permission to use them, but as I'm making no money and intend flattery rather than offence I hope she doesn't mind!

…….

The harder one tried to not think about something, the more insistently that something played on the mind. In the short interval between having cells removed from the inside of his cheek and being given his super-duper new security pass - he had been assured that it took a mere five minutes to incant the necessary spells - Severus Snape ought to have been applying his brain to his work. A man in his position had a lot to think about, and for the sake of every witch and wizard in the country, his many responsibilities could not be taken lightly.

However, it was not thoughts of politics or wizarding law which occupied his mind for those peaceful moments away from his desk. That morning, he had been dragged into a debate with Arthur Weasley over some inter-departmental matter of scant importance, when the merry widower had looked him earnestly in the eye, lowered his voice and begged:

"Severus, please!"

Snape had managed an "I'll think about it," stalking away before anyone had a chance to see the memories in his head broadcast on his face. He heard the commonplace phrase every day, but it took only the perfect combination of tone and paternalistic delivery for it to burn a hole through his chest. The Ministry corridors were starting to morph into the windswept space at the top of the Astronomy Tower as he had hurried to the security post; now flashbacks of the tiny aftershocks of magic which followed the worst two words in the wizarding world fizzled up his right arm.

Killing Albus had been his duty. He knew that, just as everyone else did. It had not been a murder, but a tactic, and no one else could have possibly carried out those final orders. These were the proven facts, but at moments like this, that knowledge could not stem the flood of remembered emotion as the sight of the old man shooting limply backwards in a haze of green absorbed all of his consciousness.

"_Severus, please!"_

"_Avada Kedavra!"_

His actions that wretched night had probably earned him some kind of cosmic prize for being the least likely route to national heroism. Death had propelled him to glory, but he could never forget the horror of it, in that twisted moment when he realised that he actually had to go through with the grand plan. He cursed all those wild schemes, cursed the sacrificial strategies and cursed the dead old bones of Albus Dumbledore.

He wondered if, nine years later, any of the Gryffindors the late legend had adored still missed him as much as this?

"Er, Chief?" Dawlish pushed open the door, frowning at a piece of parchment in his hand. Katie Bell, one of the brains behind making this supposedly cutting edge scheme into reality, slid through after him, observing Snape with a piercing stare as though he were a particularly baffling conundrum.

Snape returned to the realities of the new security system, favouring the auror with a mild sneer despite his actual relief at being shaken out of his mental torture.

"I don't have all day, Dawlish," he said.

"There seems to be a problem, Sir," the young man said, looking up at Snape, eyes flicking over the infamous scar, then back at his paper as though either of them would yield the answer to whatever was bothering him.

"What is it?" he sighed. "You've already taken a third sample after you messed up the first two. Don't tell me you need to do it again?" Dawlish looked at Bell, who muttered something under her breath. Dawlish swallowed and took a step back.

"Fine," Katie glared at her colleague, before resuming her professional countenance. "My apologies, Sir, but the procedure which we've been performing all week in order to allocate each Ministry employee a card with their personal genetic fingerprint will not work in your case."

Snape blinked at the charms boffin, but otherwise made no movement.

"Explain yourselves," he commanded coldly. They looked at each other, Dawlish taking another step away, forcing Bell to continue.

"We can't, really," she shrugged. "For everyone else, we've performed the spells to isolate their DNA, copied it and imbued a personal card with it, which will be monitored closely and cannot be used by anyone else, even someone using polyjuice."

"So what's wrong with your spell this time?" he asked.

"Nothing!" put in Dawlish.

"Precisely," agreed Bell.

"Then I don't see the problem," Snape glanced at his watch. He was becoming late for a meeting.

"The problem is not with our spell," explained Dawlish, then stopped dead and looked at Katie, forcing her to say the unsayable truth.

"No, Sir," she swallowed, steeling herself for the explosion. "I'm afraid the problem lies with your DNA."

…….

Narcissa was visibly struggling with the siren song of the cakes sitting on the counter of the café.

When she had been Narcissa Malfoy, society hostess, fashion icon and envy of most of the female magical population, her iron willpower restricted the intake of food to practically nothing. Her immaculate outfits had hung in strategically flattering lines from angular shoulders, ghosted over a petite, pert bosom before being violently cinched in at a handspan waist. The delicate wrists and ankles had caused grown men to weep.

From the outside, Narcissa Weasley was an entirely different person. Hearty breakfasts, lunches with friends, afternoon gossip sessions over tea and biscuits at work, and her own plain cooking every evening was rapidly turning the new Mrs Weasley into a replica of her plump predecessor. It was rather upsetting for Lucius to note that happiness positively shone from her now-rosy cheeks, where once a mien of cool aloofness had been the socially acceptable way to express her disappointment at ending up married to a gay cad who cared more for his Dark Lord than his wife.

Arthur and Narcissa were quite revoltingly happy in their unsightly mutated barn of a home. Lucius had been surprised to learn that they were actually not too badly off, as soon after the marriage Arthur had developed an interest in having a career, being promoted several times in the readjustments after the war. With no young children to support and two incomes, they lived very well, though nothing like as luxuriantly as the old life back at the Manor, (may it rest in pieces.) Some of the guilt Lucius had felt on being confronted with his wife's circumstances after his foolishness had ruined them had begun to ease. Cissa was fine. Comfortable and happy. He was delighted for her, even though he occasionally got an undignified urge to punch Weasley in the face. When he had confided this shameful truth to Severus, the younger man reminded him this had been the case since long before either of them had married Narcissa.

The comfortable, happy and rounded person in question - who would probably have been fatally scorned by her younger self, had she glided in at that moment - lost the battle with the raspberry tart.

"Have some," she urged her ex-husband, pushing the plate into the middle of the table. "Make me feel less guilty."

"Should you feel guilty about eating something you enjoy?" Lucius had learned a lot about the minefield of female body-related angst while chatting with his lady clients and found that they tended to undertake much more extravagant design projects for their houses if he chatted them up a little.

"Yes," she licked crumbs from her fork in a way that made him feel as though he were intruding in an intimate spiritual union between witch and cake. "I was in a hurry last week and grabbed a jacket from the downstairs cupboard instead of going up to our room. It's a little storeroom we don't use very often, with some gardening shoes, old toys and a couple of old coats hanging on pegs. I had been walking around for two hours before I realised the bloody thing was one of Molly's! And it fit me!"

Their laughter was just dying away when Cho, Severus' unflappable and frighteningly efficient personal assistant entered the café and made a beeline for their table.

"Excuse me for interrupting, Mrs Weasley," she smiled, then turned on Lucius with the cold expression she always used to convey that she was only being polite to him because hexing him into oblivion would affect her career prospects. For a time he had wondered whether it was jealousy born of an attachment to Snape, but Draco had explained that the murder of some childhood boyfriend had given her a violent hatred of Death Eaters. Whether it was admiration for her boss' rehabilitation for his own crimes, or mere expedience which kept her from turning the same dislike on Snape he never found out, but they made a very good professional team. "Could you come with me, please?"

"Where are we going?" he asked, not liking her tone.

"Number 10," she looked at the ceiling, rather than at Lucius.

………

From the outside, number 10 Upping Street, official residence of the Minister of Magic, was an unprepossessing doorway in a bare brick wall.

The interior, however, was decorated so well that it had launched Lucius as the magical world's hottest designer. On being invited to the house - only a few doors down from the flat allocated to the Head of MLE and his partner - to say suitably polite things about yet another tiny new addition to the Tonks-Shacklebolt household the previous year, he had been horrified with what he saw. The place had hardly been changed since before the Grindelwald war, and by Merlin's beard, was it obvious.

Dreary wallpapers and dull old fittings made for a pretty depressing family home and, buoyed up with celebratory champagne, he had told Kingsley so. The Minister claimed he had never really thought about it, being very busy with state business and rearing four little metamorphagi under the age of 5, but a budget surely existed somewhere for that sort of thing so if Lucius wanted to try sprucing the place up in time for the G-wiz summit, then he was welcome to go ahead.

Appalled at the idea of the leaders of the 7 other richest countries in the wizarding world forming a lasting impression of Britain based on their host's home, (though Severus had insisted that an impression of a stuffy place clinging to faded glories would be rather accurate,) Lucius had risen to the occasion. By the time the G-wiz dignitaries arrived for their annual feast of hot air and self-congratulation, 10 Upping Street had been transformed into a temple of taste, and talk of Lucius' skill spread far and wide.

There was little opportunity to admire his handiwork today, however, as he was whisked straight inside and subjected to a hair-raising number of tests before some witch poked a stick into his mouth and made him stand and wait while she waved her wand at the damp end of it.

"What on earth are you doing?" he demanded, finally understanding all of Severus' gripes about pointless security. The witch and a colleague who melted into the room as she finished - oh Merlin, bloody Dawlish, of course! - ignored him as they murmured together. Eventually, she said:

"Fine. Nothing wrong with that," and they both pushed him through the door and followed him into the Minister's study.

"Sorry about the checks, Lucius," Kingsley greeted him from the far end of the polished mahogany table. "Come in and have a seat."

He did so, nodding at Tonks and Moody and shooting a questioning glance at Snape, who, to Lucius' trained eyes at least, was showing minute signs of strain.

"I think you know Auror Dawlish, and this is Miss Bell, who is head of the charms division of Ministry security," the Minister hovered a tray of coffee towards Malfoy, who declined.

"Charmed," he said. The narrowing of her eyes indicated that he was not the first to make the joke, and he found he was pleased to have annoyed her.

"What we are about to discuss is not known to anyone outside of this room, and I would ask that it remain so until such time as we have some answers." Hearing their friend speak so formally gave Lucius a moment of panic, wondering whether they were going to turn his nightmares into reality and send him back to Azkaban. "Miss Bell, would you mind?"

"Thank you, sir," after clearing her throat, the young woman spoke a though reciting a scholarly paper. "This morning, we took samples of Mr Snape's DNA in order to create his security pass. As a senior official, he was one of the last to undergo the procedure, so we have performed it effectively hundreds of times on other personnel without error. Unfortunately, the numerous samples we have taken from Mr Snape have all turned out to have the same anomaly."

"Anomaly? I don't understand," Lucius struggled to keep up, then a horrible feeling slid over him, even worse than the thought of losing his newfound liberty. "Severus, are you ill?!"

"No," Snape snorted. "It seems that, contrary to all evidence, I do not exist."

The uneasy silence confused Lucius even further. Nobody seemed to know quite what to think and kept glancing nervously at each other.

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic," rasped Moody at last. "You obviously do exist, I can see you with my own two eyes. _Both_ of them," he added, making the magical one rotate for emphasis. "What Snape means is that when our resident charmer over there tried to isolate his DNA to create his security pass, she found that it could not be done."

"It was like nothing I'd ever seen before," Bell pulled out some papers and spread them out, pointing with her wand at a bizarre pattern of little rectangles. "Certainly his genetics do not appear to be normal. I would like to contact the specialist in America whose research into magical DNA made this whole security project possible and see what she thinks. Mr Snape? Minister? May I?"

"Could it simply be that there is a dash of something, er," Lucius knew Severus was going to kill him later for the suggestion. "Something not quite human in you, which is affecting the spell."

"No!" said Snape, glaring.

"That would make no difference," offered Tonks. "This procedure has worked fine on people with vampire, werewolf, veela, troll, centaur, satyr and giant ancestry. And metamorphagi, for that matter, whatever form they were in," she added with a grin.

"Severus," Kingsley passed a hand over his face. "You swear that you have no idea what is causing this problem? Concealing spells? Potions? You're not taking something to shield evidence of an addiction to an illegal substance, for example? Not in the early stages of a sex-change? It will go no further than this room if so."

"No," Snape answered sharply, loathing the implications and loathing being interrogated. He rubbed at the lightning-bolt shaped scar slashing across his cheek. "I had wondered if it might be lingering effects of Potter's Avada Kedavra, which failed because of my blood-bond with Albus. Might that have confused the system?"

"Potter survived an AK and had a blood-bond with Voldemort," put in Moody. "But he was done yesterday, with no problems at all. This goes much deeper, Snape. This is a blip in the fundamental essence of you."

The terrible conversation went on, and Lucius watched his lover stoically fielding insult after injury from his supposedly loyal colleagues. Eventually, the focus shifted to him, as Moody decided to harass the ex-Death Eater ex-jailbird. Lucius found himself having to deny that he was exerting dark influences on Severus, using him as a tool to stay out of prison and worm his way back into society; even refuting Moody's theory that he had actually killed the real Snape and created some kind of biddable monster to take his place. The worst revelation was that though Tonks and Shacklebolt had been perfectly civil to him for the previous two years, they still did not really trust him.

"All right," said Kingsley, with a weary finality. "I believe that neither of you are knowingly involved in any untoward activity. But you have to understand what a difficult position this puts me in. Ten years of war is still fresh in memory - I would be failing wizardkind if I allowed you to continue to hold such high office with such a sinister mystery hanging over you, particularly given that your partner is a convicted Death Eater whose sentence you pulled strings to curtail." The words made Lucius feel sick with shame and dread.

Snape nodded and leaned back in his chair, grimacing.

"Will you indict me?"

"What!?" Lucius was on his feet immediately in fury. "He's done NOTHING WRONG! You can't just sack him!"

"Calm your queeny self, Malfoy," commanded Moody. Scowling, Lucius sat down again, wishing he had kept his cool when he felt his bad ankle click.

"It won't come to that," sighed Kingsley. "I hope."

"So what do we do with them until this specialist has found out what's going on?" asked Moody. "We can't risk Ministry security by letting Snape access sensitive information while we know there's something dodgy going on. We need to keep him somewhere secure."

"Secure? Where do you…no! No!" Lucius almost whimpered, looking at Kingsley, who was frowning at the table. His glance shifted to Tonks. "Not _Azkaban!_ Nymphadora, please! I don't understand what has happened, but it wasn't anything we've done. I swear it!"

Snape swallowed as he watched the colour drain from Lucius' face at the thought of returning to the prison, evaporating his dignity in a flash, leaving him whining in desperation.

"House arrest would be enough, surely," he suggested, following Lucius' lead and addressing the least stern person in the room, who was known to be more involved in the running of the magical country than her official position as Minister's wife would suggest. "Ward and guard our flat like Gringott's until this mess sorts itself out. Prevent us leaving, allow no one but yourselves to enter."

Kingsley, who also knew that he wasn't the only great political mind living in Number 10, looked at Tonks as she chewed at her thumbnail.

"Lucius asked if Severus was ill," began Tonks thoughtfully. "Why not say that he is? Start a rumour that he's contracted Dragon Pox and they both have to stay at home - supposedly in quarantine - until this DNA expert finds us some answers? That way, we know where they are, they are safe and comfortable and the public don't start gossiping."

Lucius and Severus held their breath for painful seconds.

"Fine," said Kingsley.

At that precise moment, it was all Lucius could do not to crawl across the table and kiss his ex-niece in law.

…….


	3. Chapter 3

…….

Just when he had begun to feel safe in his own skin.

Severus had survived murdering Albus, being on the run, a killing curse and all the poisonous things which life had thrown at him over the years. Then he had freed the divinely wicked Lucius Malfoy from Azkaban and somehow, despite all his anticipation to the contrary, had got him into bed within his first 24 hours of being free. Even more incredibly, after two years, the fallen idol was still showing no inclination to leave said bed, or the scarred and ugly man occupying the other side of it. For a brief heartbeat in the drudgery of Severus Snape's life, he had been blissfully happy.

He ought to have known better than to expect it to last.

He wondered what on earth had happened. It made no sense for him to be different from everyone else, at least not genetically. He knew that he had never been one of the crowd, or a person who made others feel comfortable, but he had long since given up believing himself to be a breed apart. Most young magical folk had a phase of believing they were a special being, a changeling, a one-off super-creature with extraordinary powers far superior to the dull old couple who had raised them. Like most young wizards, Severus had grown out of this fantasy at the age of about ten.

Alone in his study, he racked his brains and reflexively traced his scar, desperate to come up with any explanation for the difference which had caused such upset at the Ministry. How had he lived for almost fifty years with no inkling of his being such a freak? Disregarding juvenile taunts about his physical appearance or temperament, there had never been a reason to imagine that he was not human. Scowling, he remembered how quick Lucius had been to bring the idea to the table. Though Tonks had claimed that part-humans were supposedly no different, as regarded these particular tests, so he felt faintly reassured that he had not somehow turned into a monster.

He sank lower in his chair and sulked some more. Surely the Dark Lord would have noticed any abnormality? Or Albus? Both powerful wizards had spent long hours playing cat and mouse games inside his mind, crashing around as though his brain were a Quidditch pitch. It was incredible that neither of them could have missed an important trait which set their quaffle apart – they would definitely have tried to use whatever it was against each other. For a long period of his life, he had been under intense scrutiny from either one or the other, yet it was obvious that neither had found this extra-ordinary_something_ or they would have found a way to use it, to use him, abuse him in body and mind, for their own ends.

For the first time ever, Snape's desk was devoid of its usual mountain-range of paperwork, the abnormally bare room exacerbating his feeling of oddness. He used to routinely curse and scowl at the way the piles multiplied incessantly and even rearranged themselves when his back was turned, but now he found that he missed it. While he was under investigation, he could be allowed no access to confidential Ministry information, as though the years he had spent toiling at his work night and day meant nothing, now that he had been found to be _strange._ For the first time ever, he had no duties to fulfil, no projects to work on, no deadlines to make him sweat and panic.

It was so wrong.

He had managed to train Lucius to knock before entering a room, but the idea of waiting to be granted access would probably take another two years, at least. The hearty rap was followed immediately by his lover's entrance.

Lucius stared at the vacant surfaces for a moment with bewilderment. Eventually, he said:

"What a marvellous grain your desk has," and stepped forward to touch the top. "I had no idea! Oh, and that side-table! Is it ebony? Goodness, how exquisite!"

Snape watched him without comment, as he exclaimed over all the everyday objects which were unrecognisable without their snowdrifts of parchment.

"Please will you stop?" he asked quietly at last. Realising his insensitivity, Malfoy complied at once.

"Sorry," his face sobered. "Are you all right?"

Snape made a sharp little exhalation and looked at the ceiling.

"Well, I didn't really think you would be," Lucius came and leaned against the edge of the desk, peering down at Severus with concern. "I have to ask, my love, forgive me. Is there anything you weren't telling Shacklebolt earlier? Do you know a secret?"

"No," replied Snape, tilting his head on one side to add almost viciously, "Do you?"

"Of course not," he ignored the dig, reaching out to squeeze a black-clad shoulder. "Let's not allow this nonsense to spoil things between us. I don't honestly think they believe either of us have done anything illegal, but you can't blame them for taking precautions. There's probably a straightforward explanation and we'll enjoy the sight of some red faces at number 10 tomorrow!"

Snape grunted non-committally.

"And in the meantime," Lucius continued seductively, leaning closer. "There is no work to do, we can't leave the house – what would you really like to spend the day doing? Hm? What shall we do to amuse ourselves, that we never normally get time for?"

It was not exactly what Malfoy had had in mind, Severus knew, with a sliver of guilt, but it had been so terribly long since he had the time and opportunity to indulge, he ignored the disapproving silence radiating from the other end of the sofa. Reclining with a huge bag of Monster Munch, he pressed play on the remote control and put his feet up.

The film began and Severus crunched his crisps and waited. The pure-blooded wizard was remarkably tolerant of the old habits which the half-blood no longer felt ashamed enough to hide. Over the last few years, being promoted and appreciated for the part he played in the war had done a lot for his self-esteem, although he was under no illusions as to being truly heroic or attractive. He still wore the protective persona which had served him so well all his adult life, but as he had navigated his 40s, he had realised that there was no longer any point in denying certain things about himself. Like his preference for beer over fancy wines. Or being a poof. His extremely humble beginnings, however, still gave him trouble, especially as far as his perfectly-bred boyfriend was concerned.

That breeding was being tested to the limit now, as Malfoy sat stiffly with his hands folded in his lap, looking at the television with suspicion.

"Why is it all blue!?" he huffed, unable to restrain comment any longer.

"Because the action begins underwater," Snape explained patiently.

"Why is there a cello? A cello wouldn't sound like that if it were underwater."

"It is simply background music, intended to create a feeling of suspense," he sighed, certain that they had discussed basic cinematographic conventions in depth last Christmas, while watching 'It's a Wonderful Life'.

Lucius snorted sceptically, burrowing his hand into the crisp packet, then pulling a face as he chewed.

"And these things aren't even made from real monsters!"

…….

Narcissa made her way slowly through the graves, pausing briefly beside those tombstones which were significant. As a rule, she never brought flowers, or knelt down to speak to the departed as others did, preferring to pay her respects by simply setting aside time to come to this place. To remember. As usual, she had been reminded of more than she could comfortably cope with at once, so was now heading to the best-kept, most visited and most outrageously floral plot in the graveyard to give a quick nod to the late Molly Weasley, before apparating back to the land of the living.

A tousled mop of black hair visible between the stones as she approached told Narcissa that she was not the only one thinking of the past today.

"Harry," she greeted her almost-stepson.

"Hi, Narcissa," he stood and brushed the grass from his knees.

"Doing some weeding?" she found that stating the obvious was always a good way to test the variable moods of all the young men for whom she now felt responsible. They had mostly taken to her better than she would have imagined, the odd unfavourable comparison with their mother, made under duress, notwithstanding.

Though not biologically a Weasley, Harry Potter was apparently the most devastated by Molly's death. Narcissa had always assumed this was due to his guilt that she had been murdered as part of Voldemort's plot to kill him. One candid and faintly drunk conversation the previous summer, however, had revealed that she had been the first adult to ever hug him and the first to offer the unconditional motherly love which so many took for granted. The Blacks had not been a demonstratively affectionate family, but they had other, more subtle ways of making their daughters feel appreciated. She could scarcely imagine what had been going through Albus Dumbledore's head the night he decided to leave the lonely baby with those dreadful muggles, who, it was now common knowledge, had done everything within the boundaries of the law to make their nephew feel as unwanted as possible. The Weasleys would not have minded one extra mouth to feed, or any childless wizarding couple would have been thrilled to care for the little orphan. Had she believed for one minute that he would have considered placing Harry with a Slytherin family, she would have persuaded Lucius to raise the boy at the Manor - but no doubt that would have interfered with the old man's_Cunning and Ingenious Masterplan for the Glorious Future of Wizarding Society_. The needs of one baby had evidently been considered unimportant when compared with the Greater Good.

"Just tidying up a bit," the grown-up Harry tugged off a gardening glove to wipe the sweat from his forehead. "It's hot today!"

"You're doing a good job," she nodded at the eye-catching riot of flowers, apparently all competing to be the most colourful tribute in the whole cemetery. "Listen, I'm going to do a barbecue in the garden tonight. The twins are coming, and Ron, and Hermione's promised to make it back in time. Arthur's going to make his special summer punch. We'd love you to be there."

"That'll be nice, thank you," he smiled, then looked at his shoes. "I have genuinely been busy, you know. I'm not avoiding you."

"I'm glad," she responded to his confiding tone immediately. "I'm trying to be lead this family without trying to be a replacement for someone who can never be replaced. I don't want to upset anyone."

"You're doing fine," he reassured her sincerely. "It feels a bit weird still, that's all. Give us time."

He turned back to the flowerbed and she stood watching for a moment, pleased with his approval, although Arthur was always brilliant at advising her when she was unsure what to do, so she was never completely lost. There were so many pitfalls in her new life, which her upbringing and previous marriage had offered no preparation for. Conforming to the Weasley family ethos, despite its joyous playfulness, was like living on another planet.

"Oh, I meant to ask, how's Snape?" Harry said, after using his wand to uproot a particularly tenacious weed.

"Severus? What do you mean?"

"This is the first time he's not been at work in years. They say he's got the Dragon pox, and he and Malfoy are quarantined at home. Do you know anything?"

"No!" Narcissa bit her lower lip. This was the first she had heard. Dragon pox could still kill, despite all the treatments and precautions now available. She remembered being quarantined herself just after her first marriage, locked up inside the Manor while in other rooms Lucius swore and Abraxas roared in frustration at the itching of their horrible new scales. Lucius had got away with a mild dose, making a complete recovery except for the very slight weakness in his right ankle which led him to begin carrying that ostentatious cane. Abraxas had not been so lucky.

"Oh, right. Might just be a rumour, of course," Harry backtracked on seeing her expression. There was a moment of awkward silence before he decided to change the subject. "So, who do you visit when you come here?"

"The same as you, I imagine. Parents, old friends, my sister. Too many people," she shrugged.

"Your_sister?!_" the young man's brow creased in the expression which Narcissa had learned to recognise as the pilot fish of ferocious and explosive anger.

"Yes," she replied steadily. "Whatever she did, she was still my sister."

"Sirius! Neville's parents! All those wizards! You can't just ignore all that because of a family connection! She…she…" he lost coherence as his anger built, not that Narcissa could blame him for being so affected by the mere mention of Bellatrix.

"I don't ignore what she did. How could I? I witnessed more of her exploits than you did," she explained, refusing to be cowed, or even ruffled by the fury radiating from Harry. "But I think you ought to go and look at her grave."

"Bollocks!" yelled Harry. "I'll go and spit on it!"

"I can't stop you doing that, of course, but I would rather you didn't," his stepmother, born a lady, remained serene. "It's just over there."

With one last heartfelt plea for Harry to come to the Burrow for dinner, Narcissa squeezed his hand and walked away. She needed to find out what was happening with Severus and Lucius. It was highly unlikely that they both had Dragon pox. Having survived it once, her ex-husband would be immune to further attacks, and she was fairly sure that all the other Death Eaters - including Snape - had been inoculated against the disease as soon as it transpired that the Malfoys had been affected. Voldemort had not wanted an epidemic.

The two of them were clearly up to something, and she ought to be careful. As she reached the cemetery gate, she glanced back to see Harry standing in the section set aside for Lestrange family graves, doing as she had asked despite his anger. Narcissa did not need to look at the words anymore, she knew them by heart. There was the newer memorial commemorating the lives of her sister and brother-in-law, then there were the three small headstones just adjacent to it, which were what she had really wanted Harry to see, to try and make him understand.

_Marmaduke Rodolphus Lestrange.  
12th - 14th December 1976._

_Aurora Morgan Lestrange  
Who was born on 2nd October 1977 and died the same day.  
And her twin,  
Emilia Cassiopeia Lestrange  
Who died on 9th October._

And finally, the worst of them all:

_Hope Lestrange  
Born 28th September 1978.  
Died 14th February 1979._

Hope had struggled to cling onto life for almost five miserable months. She had stopped breathing almost every day, had suffered endless cardiac arrests, terrifying fits, had been too weak to feed or even cry, severely brain-damaged from oxygen deprivation and weighed next to nothing. Lucius had reported a muttered comment from Walden MacNair that even he would have not allowed a creature to suffer so badly for so long. Despite everyone's best efforts with nutrition potions and ventilation spells, Bellatrix's Hope had faded away and died.

It wasn't that Narcissa considered these tragedies an excuse for her sister's behaviour. Even as a girl, Bella had always been sadistic and slightly unhinged, inflicting horrible tortures on her elves and unfortunate sisters as part of her games. Yet Narcissa could not help believing that, had any of the children lived, she might not have flung herself so whole-heartedly into being a Death Eater. Voldemort must have been delighted with his most vehement follower. She avidly swallowed his every word, pursued his interests with the recklessness of those who have nothing to lose and had inexhaustible supplies of personal agony, which she was more than ready to transfer to others.

Narcissa suspected that the Longbottoms might have got away with either a beating or a quick and painless AK, had their living room not been plastered on every surface with proud pictures of their giggling, healthy baby.

Harry Potter would not be capable of understanding all of this, not really. But she would feel that she had performed some kind of pseudo-parental responsibility by trying to make him think about it.

The thought of responsibility made her think of Lucius, who, though no longer technically her responsibility, still had some claim on her emotions. It seemed there was something strange afoot with him and his unlikely new love, and though it probably did not concern her in the least, she felt she ought to investigate.

If Lucius was up to his old tricks already and had done something to threaten his own liberty and that of Severus, she would personally throttle him.

…….


	4. Chapter 4

Author's note: The most frequently asked question last time was what film the boys were watching. I hope this helps!

This chapter contains some highly suspect pseudo-scientific conversation. I am hoping that my dear, kind and forgiving readers will appreciate that I'm inclined towards the arts rather than the sciences and will just go with the flow without worrying too much about the flimsy rationale. Let's just believe that it's all MAGIC and not worry too much beyond that. Thank you for your understanding! SN xx

…….

Kingsley, Katie Bell and the magical genetic specialist arrived at Severus and Lucius' home early the next morning, the expert taking no trouble to hide her delight at having discovered a living anomaly. Severus was in no mood for over-enthusiastic Americans at the best of times, let alone after a night when his infrequent snatches of sleep had consisted of anxiety dreams, interrupted by Lucius thrashing wildly next to him, screaming "shark!"

However, once they were installed comfortably in the living room, he warmed to her very as soon as he recognised her effusive personality as the maniacal glee of the true-born academic. Bell had obviously taken his problem to the very top of the tree.

"Well, Mr Snape," Professor Heelicks tucked a lock of wispy grey hair behind her ear and grinned at him.

It took her several minutes of "basicallys", "all the data suggests", "totally amazings" and various other timewasting exclamations before she finally got to the point.

"Legitimising Potion," she concluded at last. Snape's stomach gave a lurch so violent he feared that it was going to spray his breakfast all over the carpet and had to clamp his hand in front of his mouth.

"What's that?" asked Lucius, frowning. Kingsley was looking just as puzzled. Not daring to speak, he nodded at Professor Heelicks to prompt her to explain.

"There have been various different names for it through the centuries," she still looked far too buoyant, Snape decided. "It is a rare, complicated and highly illegal potion, which, if taken by a witch during the early stages of pregnancy, can change the appearance of the foetus to resemble someone other than the father."

Looking at the quizzical expressions, Snape could tell that no one had understood what was being revealed. Risking projectile vomiting, he removed his hand.

"It is used by a witch who is carrying the child of a man other than her husband," he flatly described the reference he had discovered in one of the darker tomes in the Malfoy library. "A more dangerous relative of polyjuice, it requires several weeks of careful brewing, and the slightest mistake can be fatal. At the correct point in the moon-cycle, the brewer adds a hair of whomever the unborn child will need to resemble. The potion then goes to work on the foetus, decoding the true father's genes and replacing them with the information contained within the hair. The mother's contribution to the child's makeup is unaffected, so the baby grows up to look like its official parents and there can be no suspicion of infidelity."

"Fascinating, don't you think?" gushed Professor Heelicks. "The child grows up perfectly normally, with no indication of the change having been made. He or she is even able to reproduce, passing on the genes of the false father, rather than the actual one, so…ah… _definitive_ is the process. I have never had the opportunity to study first-hand DNA which has been altered in this manner, it opens up an total goldmine of information!"

There was a short silence while Lucius and Kingsley digested the revelation.

"So that's all? You mean Severus' DNA looks odd simply because his mother had an affair and artificially fixed him in utero to look like his dad? I mean, to look like, er, Mr Snape?" Kinglsey leaned back in his chair with relief.

_"All?"_ exclaimed Lucius.

"Well, obviously it is a great shock for you, Severus," he quickly added, apologetically. "But from an official point of view, I can see no reason why you should not be allowed to return to the Ministry and continue with your job. I am sorry to have put you through this for no reason, I hope you understand that because of your elevated position, we had to be absolutely certain of your identity?"

"Identity," Snape repeated calmly. "Of course, Minister. Excuse me." He rose with much dignity and left the room at a brisk walk, entered the bathroom, closed the door behind him and was copiously sick.

He pondered that interesting reflex. He was fairly certain that the notion of his parents' marriage being imperfect on its own would have caused such a dramatic reaction, so he had probably been more afraid of being a freak of nature than he had admitted to himself. Never a natural vomiter, Snape had remained in possession of his own bile even when some of the revolting things he had seen and done in Voldemort's name set the unflappable sadist MacNair heaving.

Forcing himself to acknowledge that Eileen had been unfaithful to Tobias, he racked his brains for some clue, or any indication as to who his real father could have been. Had this unknown man loved his mother? He hoped so. She deserved more happiness than she appeared to have achieved during her life. He had always assumed that his parents had been in love when they married, that the disillusionment had come later, then the resentment and finally the separation; now it appeared that within a year of promising to stick together for ever, his mother had had other interests. Perhaps she had even been seeing someone else before the wedding, in which case, why on earth had she gone ahead and married a grumpy large-nosed muggle who lived in factory accommodation in the grottiest town in Yorkshire?

Too many questions had been posed by this new information; they tumbled into Snape's consciousness in no particular order. He was illegitimate! (For a juvenile second he was pleased that Sirius Black was not here to crack the obvious joke.) He might not actually be a half-blood Prince. He had no right to the name Snape. He had absolutely no idea who he really was.

Time passed while he knelt, thinking, in front of the toilet bowl, until he heard Lucius quietly come in and sit on the side of the bath.

"They've gone," he said. "That woman wants to do a load of tests on you and write a paper in one of the scientific journals. Kingsley and I managed to argue that you were too important to national security to be some kind of guinea pig. She didn't look very happy. How are you feeling?"

"Relieved there was a simple explanation," Snape replied after a minute's reflection. He looked up at Lucius and gave him a wan smile. Lucius did not seem too convinced about the 'simple' part, but tugged some toilet paper from the roll and passed it to Severus so he could wipe his mouth.

"Finished puking?" he smiled cautiously. When Severus nodded, he helped him up.

Peggy provided ginger tea and they sat side by side on the sofa.

"Whatever the problem was," Lucius began tentatively. "I never imagined it would be this."

"I am pleased that there is nothing horribly wrong with me, bar a touch of the 'bar sinister'," Snape said philosophically, tucking his feet underneath him and leaning against his lover. "Does it bother you?"

"Does what bother me?" Lucius sounded confused.

"That we don't know who I am?"

"I know who you are!" he exclaimed. "You are my Severus. What more is there to know?!"

These sudden romantic statements always startled Snape, though he was aware that Malfoy was very fond of him. After being alone for most of his adult life, it wasn't easy to adjust to the wonderful feeling of being cherished. Sometimes it made him angry over all the moments in his past which could have been improved, or avoided altogether had there been someone - preferably Lucius, but in his present-day irritable moments, anyone would have done - to share his life with. The business transactions he had made do with for so long had brought peace to his body's hungers, but none whatsoever to those of his soul.

In lieu of being able to verbally express his gratitude, he rested his face in the corner of Lucius' neck and shoulder, knowing this would induce cuddling.

"Will you help me, love?" Severus murmured against the soft and suspiciously fragrant skin. The house-elf did love spoiling her vain second master with pointless beauty treatments and pampering. Heaven only knew where she had learned all that nonsense, but if it kept Lucius happy, then Snape could not complain.

"Help you with what?" Lucius was rubbing slow circles on his back, so lovely and soothing that his reply was little more than a sigh.

"To track down my real father, of course."

…….

Just as wizarding Britain had changed unrecognisably over the last decade, Lucius Malfoy was a very different man from the one he had been before the eight year stretch in Azkaban.

It was not merely the circumstances in which he now found himself, for he knew that no one had the power to avoid tumultuous events when they struck, but rather the way he behaved since the fluctuations in his fortunes. The soppy tenderness, for example, which he had just poured all over Severus would have been impossible for the old Lucius.

He had never been actually incapable of love. Years ago he had recognised the warm sensation in his chest has he watched his little son sleep for what it was. His admiration for Narcissa had been a much more complicated affair, yet he knew that, despite the frustrations of having married according to parental wishes instead of after one's own inclinations, he had loved her too.

It was just that his father had gone to very great lengths to explain that Being A Man involved having absolute control of one's emotions. Ladies of their social rank were permitted to shed the odd dainty tear, or to pout if a pouting might achieve results; men could rage to each other over a glass of firewhiskey on suitable occasions, but otherwise, only members of the lower classes ever displayed their innermost feelings. Such vulgarity was simply not done. And it was certainly not to be done anywhere on Abraxas Malfoy's property.

Lucius' relationship with his father had not been difficult. They had spent time together when he had been a child, apparently a great deal more time than some of his contemporaries in Slytherin house spent with their families, he found out on arriving at Hogwarts. Despite being busy with work at the Ministry, running the estate and being engaged in important secret meetings, Abraxas always seemed to find a few hours for him. They went for walks all over Salisbury Plain together, sometimes even taking educational forays into muggle areas, while Abraxas lectured on the realities of life, supplementing what Lucius learned from his tutors and their books.

Lucius had loved these moments and had worshipped his father, though of course he would never have dreamed of telling him so. The very fact that such a great and powerful man had chosen to spend so much of his precious time with a little boy had been enough to convince Lucius of the depth of feeling his father had had for him. Looking back, Lucius wondered how he had never managed to emulate these special moments with Draco.

The ready excuse was that situations beyond their control had intervened. Draco had been sixteen months old when the Dark Lord suffered his miscalculation in Godric's Hollow, and Lucius' world had been rocked to its foundations. The older man to whom he had transferred his allegiance in the wake of Abraxas' death had vanished, leaving Lucius and the rest of the Dark forces to save their own skins. Only by working desperately hard had he managed to keep the family safe and above suspicion. Well, not above suspicion exactly, there were plenty of people who were pretty sure of the Malfoy-Voldemort connection, but thanks to hours of meetings with his lawyers and some cunning obliviation, no one could find anything which would stand up in court. By the time Lucius finally felt secure enough to relax, Draco was seven years old and was Mummy's boy through and through. He tried anyway.

"Draco, would you like to come for a walk with Daddy?"

"It's cold!"

"Nonsense, it's a beautiful autumn day."

"Can we go shopping?"

"What on earth for?"

"New clothes!"

"I_beg_ your pardon?!"

"I want a red cloak."

"Draco, you have several very nice cloaks."

"Red is this season's colour!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Draco. Go and get your boots. We are going for a nice walk into Shaftesbury."

"Urgh! Muggles smell!"

"Only once decomposition has set in. I want to show you how they live and explain about cars. You'd like to see a car, wouldn't you, son? Every little wizard is interested by muggle vehicles. I had a particular fondness for tractors when I was your age."

"What's a tractor?"

"Well, it's a sort of car they use in the fields with great big wheels and a selection of fascinatingly gruesome machinery to pull behind it."

"Don't care."

"Come along, Draco."

"Don't wanna."

"Draco Edward Abraxas! Fetch your boots this instant!"

"MUMMY!!!!!!!"

"Lucius! Leave the boy alone!"

After a few weeks of such endeavours, Lucius gave up and decided that after all the effort he had put in to keep his name and family safe, he deserved to be rewarded, not tortured. Around this time, a chance meeting led to a startling revelation in the arms of a young man named Reg, and a whole secret world he had never thought possible, even in his dirtiest dreams, had opened up before him. It occurred to him that the problem with his marriage had not been Narcissa's insistence on being so prim and proper in bed, but that Lucius had been trying to play for the wrong team. He began to spend less time with his awkward family and more with his outside interests.

Despite his private rejection of traditional family life, he had maintained the traditional atmosphere of Malfoy Manor when he became lord of it on his father's demise.

It was a place of pristine politeness, with no toys to be visible outside of the nursery, no untidiness of dress or belongings and all guests and residents were to adhere to the highest social formality at all times. This was by no means the norm in pure-blood homes. The Orion Blacks, for example, were shockingly earthy in their behaviour, (which probably explained a lot about their strange sons) because they believed that their impeccable lineage was enough to keep them in the upper reaches of society. Malfoys knew they were a cut above absolutely everyone due to their purity _and_ their manners.

The standards which Lucius was so keen to maintain in his home meant that the discussion of intimate matters was no more regular an occurrence than under his father's rule. It was only now, much too late, that he could regret his decision. He probably ought to have told Narcissa that he cared for her. Perhaps the lavish presents on their anniversary had not conveyed what he felt inside, but after spending his life battening down his emotions and remaining cool and superior when in the presence of every other human being, it was a lot easier to gift his wife with enough jewels to sink a ship than to say "I love you."

His life was different now, as was his relationship.

It was easier to express his love with Severus, ridiculous though it seemed when one imagined the stiff and stern head of law enforcement. It may have been partly because Lucius was older, and had learned from his mistakes with his ex-wife. There was nobody to impress anymore, now that he was merely a former convict with no home of his own and the family name lay in tatters, so there seemed to be no reason to give himself airs. All he had now was Severus, so Severus was something he could not afford to lose through carelessness. He was well aware that a man in so powerful a position would have no trouble in finding a replacement partner, should the current incumbent prove unsatisfactory.

Practicalities aside, Severus always reacted so delightfully to being cherished, it was worth being a bit unmanly and soppy for that reason alone. It had taken Lucius some time to realise that while he himself had been loathe to express love because he had been taught that it was beneath him to do so, Severus had received so little of it, he probably remained so cold out of unfamiliarity with the feeling.

It was unfortunate that he had been so deprived, but as Lucius had been forced to learn to put the past behind him, he did not want to waste time regretting things he could not change. The two men had each other now. Both of them were learning what it meant to be open with each other. Malfoy reflected that this news about Severus' parentage might really be a good thing for them to experience together, as there was bound to be emotional turmoil to negotiate as they started delving into long-buried dramas. Together.

Lucius was now fifty-two years old, but was sure that even as a boy he had never felt so young and inexperienced as at this moment. It was rather exciting.

As he held Severus tightly, resisting the urge to perform a cleaning charm to dispel the lingering aroma of vomit, he wondered how they would begin to investigate a secret which Eileen Prince had been determined to keep hidden. As a very young woman, she had risked her life to make certain that her baby looked nothing like her lover, which suggested that she or Severus would have been faced with a lot of trouble had anyone suspected the affair. Lucius frowned to himself.

Who on earth could the mystery man have been?

x


	5. Chapter 5

They had decided to lie low for a little longer as Severus came to terms with the morning's strange tidings. On a normal Saturday, he would have been at the Ministry, dealing with the usual nonsense and liasing with the aurors and Kingsley to make certain that everything was well. The trouble with power, Snape had once complained to Lucius, was that once you had it, you couldn't switch it off.

Today, however, they decided to take some time to plan the next move, profiting from the rumour of illness which kept them from being disturbed.

"I shall go back on Monday morning," Snape said, looking faintly guilty. "We can just say I was suffering from an unusual virus."

"Suffering from overwork," Lucius replied, thin-lipped. "No one would have any trouble believing that."

"So, I think I need to start with the Spinner's End house," Severus ignored him, not in the mood to ignite the old gripes about long working hours or inconveniently-timed national emergencies. His job was important. That was all there was to it. "There may be something among my mother's effects. I never looked at them when she died, there didn't seem to be much point. Then you could make enquiries among people who knew her in the wizarding world - work the old pure-blood contacts. I doubt I'll have much luck with the Scoursby muggles, most of them left when the mill closed."

"I would like to see the house where you were born," Lucius interrupted. "You always change the subject when I bring up anything to do with Scoursby."

There was a silence as Snape tussled with a few of his more tenacious demons. He was not sure whether he was more ashamed of his humble origins, or more ashamed of being ashamed of them. It ought not to matter. In the brave and glorious new wizarding society that existed since the end of the war, having come from nothing to achieve high office was technically something to be extra proud of! Yet every time he thought of his childhood in that miserable place of hard labour and grey rain, images of Malfoy Manor appeared from nowhere as a withering comparison.

The gorgeous palace of a home was nothing more than a crater in the Wiltshire countryside now, but the gilded cradle of Lucius and his illustriously well-bred ancestors had taken Snape's breath away each time he saw it. The grounds, location, furniture, paintings, even the off-white peacocks which followed you around begging at the summer garden party; everything was perfect, expensive and tasteful, because generations of Malfoys had made it so.

How on earth could Snape show a man to Malfoy Manor born the grimy little brick box where he had begun? The place was approximately the size of the Manor's front porch. He wanted Lucius to think of him as an equal, to maintain whatever glamorous notion he had of his lover as a nobly disadvantaged little thing, living in a sort of genteel poverty like the Weasleys had done. The Weasleys may have been financially straightened, but they had space and light and air, fresh food, nice places to play and all the trappings of a rural home. They had worn slightly faded robes which others in the family had used before, a fact which caused endless amusement to the pure-bloods and Slytherins. Severus, however, knew what it felt like to be wearing a _stranger's_ clothes, experiencing the kind of spiritual defeat the jolly redheads would have never understood.

"May I come with you?" Lucius persisted.

"I don't think that would be a good idea," he managed.

"Why not?"

"It…"  
"If you think I'm going to that bloody castle on my own you are gravely mistaken," Lucius' impeccable diction and cut-glass accent only got sharper as he grew more peeved, Severus noticed jealously. Even after all these years of trying, Snape still occasionally heard his own carefully-managed intonation slip when tired or tipsy. If questioned, of course, no one else would admit that it mattered how he spoke, but it mattered to him. The effortlessly perfect Malfoy drawl continued decisively. "We will both go to Spinner's End, then we will both go to Hogwarts. This matter concerns us both."

"Lucius, I am more than grateful for your support, but I don't…"

He was rather relieved when the feeble protest was interrupted by a notification alarm. It seemed than an owl was incoming, originating, coincidentally enough, from the Burrow.

Lucius flicked his wand to allow the delivery and opened a card addressed to both wizards. On the front, was a childish picture of a dragon, which hiccuped and gave out a little puff of smoke, looking sad. Then it picked up a potion bottle, swallowed the contents and roared a healthy jet of red flames. As it grinned out at Lucius and Severus, the words "Get Well Soon!" appeared next to it.

"Tasteful," commented Snape acidly.

"Especially considering what we are supposed to have contracted," sniffed Lucius. The inside of the card was filled with Narcissa's beautiful neat writing.

_Dear Lucius and Severus,_

_I could not believe it when I heard that you both had Dragon pox!_

"Uh-oh," said Lucius. "She's onto us!"

_I sincerely hope that you are in no danger and will be looking after yourselves._

_The consensus here is that it sometimes benefits recovery to take a small convalescent trip, to the coast for example. Do let me know if there is anything that either Arthur or I can do to assist._

_Best wishes,_

_Narcissa._

_PS I do hope there is no chance that Draco could be infected. I should be frightfully upset, should that be the case._

"That woman is amazing," sighed Lucius, standing the card on the table.

"I am not sure I understand," scowled Snape, always wary of how well his lover and his lover's ex-wife got on.

"It's fairly simple, look! She knows we don't have Dragon pox, is wondering what's going on and is offering to work the Weasley worldwide network to help us get out of the country if something has gone drastically wrong," he smiled. "And threatens to do us serious harm if whatever we did has repercussions for Draco."

"Oh," said Snape coldly, annoyed despite recognising the generosity of the offer.

_Dear Narcissa, Arthur and family,_

_Thank you so much for your card and good wishes. You need not to have gone to so much trouble on our behalf._

"What?" snapped Snape.

"Offer gratefully received, but not needed," Lucius translated, tickling him under the chin with the quill to try and raise a smile, or at least soften the glower. The 'convalescent' batted it away and stared at the parchment.

"And now?"

Lucius reflected for a moment.

_We discovered this morning that the situation is not as bad as feared and that hopefully, Severus will be well enough to return to work on Monday._

"'…though he has been advised to rest for the remainder of the weekend'," added Snape. Lucius raised an eyebrow at the dictation. "I don't want that lot descending on us with bunches of flowers and hilarious inventions designed to cheer me up!" He explained.

Dutifully, Lucius wrote it down.

_There is no chance of Draco being affected, so please do not worry. We look forward to seeing you soon for a nice long chat._

"'A nice long chat?!' You're not telling them about all of this!" Severus exclaimed.

"I thought we were supposed to work the pure-blood contacts?" Lucius signed both their names at the bottom of the letter. "The Blacks knew the Princes very well, years ago, and Arthur's father was a popular man and a bit of a gossip. If they have a picture of him somewhere, he might give us a few leads."

Severus went quiet and wandered over to the windowsill, where the owl was making a mess with some leftovers Peggy had brought in. He accepted that Lucius should be involved, as they were life-partners now and shared everything, but the thought of everyone knowing about this most private new secret was simply horrifying.

"Speak to Narcissa," he relented, without turning round in case commanding grey eyes persuaded him to change his mind. "But no one else can know what's going on. You'll have to come up with a cover story when you speak to people. I will go to Spinner's End, you invite her over - discreetly, I am still supposed to be ill - and start hatching plots to find out what Mum did in her youth."

"Why can't I come to Spinner's End?" Lucius huffed in exasperation. "What exactly is the problem?"

Snape could not bear to explain that Lucius even knowing the name of the place made him uneasy. Scoursby was part of his miserable past and he could not bear to have the man who made his future so promising scratching at scabs which had taken decades to heal.

"Please, Louche," he shamelessly employed a bedroom name in a bedroom voice to lend weight to the emotional appeal. "This is something I must do alone."

Lucius' lips thinned in recognition of the underhand tactic, but he nodded anyway.

…….

"Wow," said Narcissa.

"Indeed," agreed Lucius.

"And he had no inkling?"

"None whatsoever," he sighed, pouring tea for them both. "I don't believe he ever entertained the idea of his mother being the sort of person who was unfaithful."

"Hmm," Narcissa held her tongue, as always, on the subject of marital infidelity. "How much does anyone truly know about their own parents? Can one ever really understand the life and loves of one's mother when she was a young woman and not the older authority figure we remember?"

His mother had been different from Druella Black, but he had to agree that he had known very little about her as a person. He had only the most nebulous memories of Lucretia, reclining on a chaise-longue in her room, wrapped in flowing satin dressing gowns. Even now, he was unsure exactly what she had been suffering from, but he had been taught from birth that she was a beautiful, delicate creature, not to be disturbed by loud noise or chatter. Lucius was brought to her at half past one every day for inspection - hopefully too full of food to be lively or tiresome - and she would peer at him through her intricately enamelled lorgnettes as though examining a diverting new species of garden shrub.

It took less than ten minutes a day for Mrs Malfoy to ascertain that her son was well and occupied. When Lucius had been informed at the age of three that his mother had died, there had been no need to work hard on controlling his grief. He felt sad, naturally, that the pretty lady was gone, but as he grew older he was happy enough to have Nanny the nursery-elf to kiss his scraped elbows better, Abraxas to dote and chasten, and successive young tutors to provide entertainment. Apart the sense of his father being the only lone male at functions, Lucretia's existence or lack of it had made no difference to Lucius.

"So, where ought we to begin?" Narcissa reached for a biscuit, put it down with a rueful shake of the head, then picked it up again and ate it.

"Severus has told me the years she was at Hogwarts, I ought to start investigating there." He did not relish the thought of a long floo journey to Scotland, traipsing around the halls remembering the old days, but until his lover came up with any other leads, they had little else to go on. "If we can find out who her friends were, we might be able to get some gossip."

"What a pity my mother's portrait was destroyed along with the Manor! I'll see if my aunt's is still at the Grimmauld Place house, Harry will let me in," she paused to frown. "Not that I relish any interaction with her."

Lucius shivered too, remembering some horrific visits when he had been expected to play with the much younger (it seemed to him at the time) and horribly irritating Sirius and Regulus, because adults always assumed that all children automatically got on well together, just because they were all children.

"Am I the only one to find it hilarious that the Order of the Phoenix had its HQ there, in the darkest and most sinister house in the country?" he smirked.

"I thought it was jolly clever of them," Narcissa admitted. "Talk about hiding in the very last place we'd think to look! All right, I'll try Aunt Walburga's portrait, Septimus Weasley's and the Prewetts, if I can find any. I might also pop over to the Witches' Institute. I doubt Eileen was a member, considering whom she married, but their archives are a wealth of information on all sorts of topics."

"And I will go and visit the Headmistress," he gave a martyred sigh. "At least that old bag McGonagall is no longer in charge. She still hates me."

"You hated all her favourite things - Transfiguration, Scotland, Gryffindor and rules," his ex-wife explained sensibly. "Even if you ignore the Death Eater issue, the two of you were never going to be friends. She might know something though, so try not to annoy her too much next time you are working on her home."

"Hmph," said Lucius, thinking about purple kitchens and the way a single glance from the ex-Headmistress still made him feel like an errant schoolboy.

…….

The canal was blooming.

Usually, the verb had positive connotations - flowers springing to life or the healthy glow of a pregnant woman, for example - but when applied to canals, it describes a positively horrible phenomenon. Severus remembered it happening a few times when he was a child. Blue-green algae either not normally present or lying dormant in the water, he could not recall the exact science of it, would suddenly spring to life. The canal would turn an alarming shade of turquoise and grow completely opaque, killing off even the hardy bad-assed fish capable of surviving the normal pollution of urban waterways. Worse than the sight of their corpses bobbing upside down in the Technicolor gloop, worse than the shock of seeing the unremarkable brownish water transformed overnight into a psychedelic relic from Dorothy's trip to Oz, was the smell.

Snape clasped his handkerchief to his face, not daring to risk a bubble-head charm in case there were any Scoursby muggles insane enough to be loitering in the putrid area and scrambled along the overgrown towpath to the narrow steps which led up to Spinner's End.

He reflected that the stink at least took his mind off the usual dark thoughts which assaulted him when making his way up the potholed road. It was less pungent here than at the water's edge, but it was nevertheless powerful enough to deter him from hanging around visualising ghosts of his younger self, his father, or any of the townsfolk he had grown up with shuffling down this street, bent double by a gale or holding a Yorkshire Evening Post over their heads as an improvised umbrella.

The glamours on number 42 were holding up, so that only once he had bypassed the muggle-deterrents, deactivated his own wards and inserted the correct key in the lock could he see all the damage. The power of Potter's Avada Kedavra the night he had tracked the fugitive Snape to this house had blown out the front window and destroyed a few internal walls. Hesitant to carry out expensive structural repairs, but not wanting to let the place of his birth collapse altogether, he had shored it up as best he could with magic and some ironwork salvaged from the ruins of the mill. He had been too busy to do much with the interior, so the ground was still littered with scraps of paper from his poor library, which had been mostly blown to confetti by the idiot boy.

He climbed through the gaping hole in the sitting room and through to the kitchen. The dust had grown thick on the rusting gas cooker. A dead wasp lay on the flimsy Formica table, close to the stain where a small boy had knocked over an ink bottle, forty years ago.

He had been right. There was no way he could ever bring Lucius to see this.

xx


	6. Chapter 6

Author's note: Opinions of the characters do not reflect those of the author! This is a general rule for my fics, but I thought I ought to reiterate it. Also, of course, characters are JKR's not mine, I am using them without permission for non-commercial purposes. Thanks x

x

It was raining. Bloody typical. Lucius was a creature of the South, having grown up in the balmier climes of Wiltshire, where the smooth vibrations of earth-magic from nearby Stonehenge and even the more distant Glastonbury could be felt humming in the air at Solstice. The summers were warm and delightful.

During his first term at Hogwarts, he had been unable to believe just how often it rained in Scotland, nor how often the rain fell _sideways._ The cold and the damp settled in one's very bones, especially in the dungeons, and the only solution had been thermal underwear and the recruitment of Crabbe and Goyle to physically remove anyone else who dared to sit in the chair closest to the common-room fireplace. It was now supposed to be summertime, for Merlin's sake, yet the light robes which had been more than adequate attire in London that morning now seemed much too thin.

The breathtaking view of rugged mountains surrounded by picturesque cloud formations was wasted on Lucius as he stomped up the front path to the castle.

Once inside, he found the Headmistress' office was too warm and felt his face begin to colour and his eyelids begin to droop. No wonder all the past headteachers were permanently snoozing in their assorted armchairs.

"Yes, I received Severus' owl about researching his mother," beamed Pomona Sprout, stirring large quantities of sugar into her tea, presumably to help keep her conscious. "Student records remain confidential until a hundred years after a person's death, so I can't show you intimate things about Mrs Snape yet."

"We are not really interested in how many detentions she earned," Lucius struggled to remain polite. Hufflepuffs had always irritated him, but Sprout was being very helpful and had not, as yet, made any comments about his past behaviour, unlike the Gryffindor harpy with the ugly kitchen. She seldom missed a chance to get at him. "We just need to know a bit about who her friends were towards the end of her time here. Contemporaries in class or in her house, dorm-mates, gobstones chums, you know."

On the wall above Sprout's left shoulder, Lucius noticed that a single sliver of blue had appeared behind Albus Dumbledore's half-moon spectacles, though his portrait remained otherwise motionless.

"Well," she riffled through a drawer until she found a piece of parchment. "She was captain of the gobstones team - a very good player, by all accounts, not that it has ever been as popular as Quidditch. We don't tend to keep records of house teams for either sport, as it is such a fluid area, you know, people getting injured, punishments interfering with matches, and people simply falling out with each other. We've never seen the point of noting down all of that," she added apologetically. "But I do have a list of all the students who left Hogwarts in the same year as Mrs Snape!"

He glanced at the names. Some he had never heard of, others leaped off the page at him.

Avery, Melissa.

Crouch, Bartemius.

Goyle, Gregory. (Good grief, was every male in the family called Gregory?!)

Jorkins, Bertha.

"Of course," Sprout interrupted his reading. "While you are here, you might want to have a word with the two people from the class of '56 who never made it as far as Seventh year."

Lucius looked up in puzzlement.

…

"You can't come in here! You're a _boy!_" shrieked Myrtle.

"Believe me, Miss Murgatroyd, hanging around school toilets is not something I enjoy," sighed Lucius. Apparently, this drab place housed the secret entrance to Salazar's chamber. No wonder he and Greg hadn't been able to find it. They had spent months combing the dungeon area and the grounds, never imagining that indoor bathrooms had existed back in the tenth century, when Slytherin had been alive. "I came to speak with you. I believe you shared a dorm with Eileen Prince."

"Ooh, you know The Princess?" she suddenly became interested, swooping forward towards him, pigtails flying.

"Not exactly. I know her son," he backed away.

"Is he as spotty as she is?" Myrtle's voice grew gradually higher. "Is he dark and spotty and snobby? Does he think he's better than everyone else, just because he's an in-bred, stupid, rich pure-blood?"

"Ah," said Lucius, suddenly glad that Snape was in Spinner's End and not with him to hear this. "Is that really what she was like?"

"Oh yes! Well, until she was fourteen anyway, I couldn't say after that. She never came to visit me, but why would she? Nobody cared about poor, speccy Myrtle when she was alive, so they cared even less about a poor ghost!" She wailed and slammed the door of a cubicle.

After a little coaxing and flattery which almost made him feel ill, Lucius got Myrtle talking again.

"She had a crush on a _boy_," she sneered. "He was older than us, with a big shiny Head Boy's badge and all the girls though he was dishy but I thought he was a creep. He used to say horrid things about the muggle-borns, and said I was tainted because I had a squib uncle! Princess loved every word of course, because he used to point her out for having a perfect pure family, and some of the Blacks and that revolting _toad_ Abraxas Malfoy! He and Malfoy were always plotting things in corners, nasty pair, a dark head and a blonde, huddled together, always whispering and doing secret things."

"Myrtle," Lucius pushed down his filial outrage for a second. "This is very, very important. Are you telling the truth?"

"You think I'm a _liar!_" she screamed.

"No, no, no, Myrtle, please, I just want to be absolutely sure," he tried his most winning, witch-friendly smile and let his hair tumble beguilingly around his face, ignoring the hammering of his heart as he realised what he was hearing. "Dear Myrtle. You are so perceptive, and so important in this research I am doing. Tell me, please. Did Eileen Prince really have a crush on Tom Riddle?"

…

"A crush? I wouldn't know anythin' about tha'," said Hagrid. "You-know-who was a proper looker in his youth, so it wouldn't surprise me if girls were making cow eyes at him."

Lucius had to hurry to keep pace with the half-giant as he made his rounds of the forest outskirts. He was outwardly polite, but there was unmistakable dislike written all over the big weather-beaten face. There was no question of a cosy chat here.

"But do you remember anything about Eileen?" When Hagrid shrugged and kept striding onwards, Lucius tried a change of tack. "Hagrid, this isn't for me, I'm trying to find something out for Severus."

The enormous frame slowed for a few paces before stopping. He put down his basket and turned, taking a proper look at the ex-Death Eater for the first time. Lucius was conscious of the fact that he was soaked to the skin and the hems of his robes were covered in mud from marching all over the place looking for the groundskeeper - hopefully he presented a pitiful and suitably punished picture.

"How is he?" Hagrid cracked a smile.

"He's fine," Lucius wiped rain out of his eyes and gave a small grin of his own, letting his own affection for Snape show. "Busy, but happy."

"Good," pronounced Hagrid. "He deserves to be." _Unlike you_, Lucius saw the unspoken put-down in the expressive black eyes.

"About his mum…" Lucius continued.

Hagrid concurred with Myrtle's description of an unattractive, stuck-up little girl who thought a great deal of herself because of her family's status. Then the class turned fourteen, Myrtle was killed and Hagrid expelled, having no option but to take up the offer made by Dippet (heavily prompted by Dumbledore) to become a sort of assistant to Mr Mellors, the groundskeeper. For a few years, he had been too scared to go near the castle, with its poisonous whispers and cruel taunts, preferring to spend his time doing jobs in the forest, where the only judgement that the animals pronounced on him was whether or not he would be a good lunch.

The first time he saw Eileen Prince again was when they were seventeen; he found her down by the lake one night, leaning against a rock and sobbing her heart out.

"Crying?" asked Lucius.

"Yeah, it sounds odd, saying it now, but she began confiding things in me," he stroked his beard thoughtfully. "'Cause I was unconnected with her world, I s'pose, it was easy to talk to a big daft oaf who didn't care for politics and never mixed with anyone who mattered."

"What did she tell you?"

"It started when her cousin died. Got drunk one night, mis-apparated into a river and drowned; shame really, he was only in his twenties. But that meant that Eileen was the only Prince child left, the only one capable of carrying on the dynasty, in blood if not in name. Her family started putting pressure on her to think about making a good marriage, to be more ladylike, more worthy of her glorious name," Hagrid's distaste oozed out of his every pore, of which there were many. The he stopped suddenly and looked down at Lucius. "But I suppose that makes sense to you."

Lucius swallowed.

"Not any more," he said quietly, then prompted, "We were talking about Eileen?"

Hagrid gave him an appraising look which lasted for a few seconds.

"Well. You'll probably know better than me what was going on in Slytherin at that time. Riddle had left by then o' course, but the beliefs that were so dear to his heart were popular with others and there was some ruthless networking going on with the older kids. Eileen had started to realise that all this talk about blood purity was a load o' codswallop, but it wasn't something that she dared to share with anyone but me. I understood perfectly, o' course. She knew that if people found out she gone all broad-minded, they would report to her parents, who would have had a fit 'cos they were working so hard to try and organise a suitable rich and pure-blooded husband. And then she ended up marrying that worthless muggle." He tailed off abruptly, looking furtively at Lucius, colour flushing the bits of his face visible underneath all the hair. "No, I shouldn't call him worthless, he did bring Perfessor Snape into the world, after all, though I don't think he deserved to have such a brave young chap fer a son. Nor such a nice girl as Eileen fer a wife."

Lucius could not fail to notice the jealous note which had coloured the end of Hagrid's revealing monologue. If Hagrid was telling the truth - Lucius wondered if he were capable of doing otherwise - then there could be little chance of his initial fear about Eileen and the Dark Lord having any foundation. Hormone-filled youngsters crushed on anyone and everyone without ever needing to as much as speak to the object of their affection.

However, as soon as this theory evaporated, it was replaced by another. He looked at the rueful expression on Hagrid's red cheeks and considered two unhappy teenage outcasts forging a bond at a difficult time, sitting unobserved and quite unchaperoned on the shores of a moonlit lake.

Oh dear.

…….

Pomona re-read Snape's letter and tried to work out why he had taken such a sudden interest in his mother. He had spent more than twenty years at Hogwarts, teacher and pupil, yet had never shown any need to talk about her before. It was most perplexing.

"You knew him much better than I did, Albus," she addressed the painted figure on the wall, who made a great show of starting awake and looking disoriented.

"Cabbages! What? Who?" He adjusted his glasses and smiled on recognising her. "Ah, hello, Pomona!"

"You don't fool me," she crossed her arms over her titanic bosom.

"I might, one day, if I keep trying," he teased. "You never know."

"You heard what that slimeball Malfoy said," she ignored him. "They are digging around for information on Severus' mother without telling my why. What's going on?"

His face was only deadly serious for a fraction of a second, but the headmistress - less fluffy in important matters than when speaking to the kiddies she loved to coddle - clocked it at once. The late Dumbledore sprawled back in his chair with an exaggerated yawn and stretch.

"So very tired, old girl, really should be getting another forty winks. Sometimes," he met her eyes very deliberately before his lids slid closed. "Sometimes it's better to let things sleep."

…….


	7. Chapter 7

…….

The Virgin Mary was holding baby Jesus upside down, Joseph was picking his nose, the angel had sticking plaster on both her knees and the innkeeper - ha! The hook-nosed little innkeeper was scowling out at the camera from under his tea-towel.

The black and white photograph was a muggle one, so the cluster of costumed five year-olds did not move, but the full drama of the moment was still apparent. Snape smirked at his younger self, who was quite obviously in a towering sulk about something.

Eileen had neatly divided her life into two parts. So far, Severus had examined only the boxes of muggle paperwork and found mostly bills with the odd touching keepsake relating to her son. There had been a baby shoe, a birthday card with a dark splodge of glue on the front, the cut out sugar-paper, shells, or whatever he had painstakingly affixed to the front had vanished. The picture of the school Nativity play was one of the last things from the last box, and Severus tucked it into his pocket with the intention of showing Lucius something about his childhood. The inevitable long and complex explanation of the traditions of muggles relating to the Christian religion in late December would divert questions of a more personal nature.

Of any clues to illicit liaisons with men in Scoursby, there had been no trace. Eileen may have been unhappy, unconventional and, it turned out, unfaithful to her husband, but she had never been careless. Severus sighed as he realised that she would not have gone to the trouble of brewing Legitimising Potion, risking a custodial sentence and both their lives, only to leave love letters lying around.

What had made her go to such dramatic lengths? What man could she have slept with, who was so terrible, or wonderful, or distinctive-looking, that she had swallowed a potential poison rather than allow her child to resemble him?

He closed the lid on the last muggle box and straightened up as far as the cramped roof space would allow, his lit wand hovering in the air to illuminate the beams and the treacherously fragile areas of floor between them. He had come up to watch his fath…Tobias doing something to the water-tank one Saturday afternoon years ago. It seemed the problem could only be fixed by lots of swear words.

"Make sure yer stands on t' wood joists, our Sev, or yer'll go right through yer soddin' bedroom ceiling, and I'll be the one as has ter pissin' put it back again. Chuck me that bleedin' spanner."

For weeks afterwards, he had woken in a sweat, having dreamed of the house collapsing on him as he lay in bed.

He bore the lesson in mind now as he navigated across the loft, gracefully balancing on the solid wood like a gymnast until he reached the boxes containing his mother's magical mementoes.

…….

"Poppet?" There was a muffled wail from the inside the kitchen. Narcissa peeped around the door to find Arthur's feet sticking out of the dreaded under-sink storage cupboard, which, thanks to some great effort of mind over matter by some Weasley who had been attempting the impossible job of tidying the kitchen, was far bigger inside than out.

"Yes, Darlingheart?" She asked, hoping he had not got embroiled in one of his fascinating dissections of muggle technology. Not when the youngsters would be coming for dinner later on. "Have you seen the snigglefruit squeezer, my angel? I need it for making the punch." 

Narcissa thought she had done a pretty good job of learning how to run a household without the aid of elves, but occasionally, she was wrong-footed by an out-of-the-ordinary task or item. Having quickly racked her brains for any mention of the correct preparation of snigglefruits in 'How to be a Domestic Sorceress', she admitted defeat.

"I'm afraid I don't know what it looks like, Pumpkin. Sorry."

"Of course you wouldn't, Pookie, it's the only one of its kind in the world!"

Ah. Naturally, the author of her dearest work of non-fiction could never have anticipated the kitchen implements a man as creative as Arthur was capable of dreaming up.

"Would Percy know, Sweetie?"

"That's an idea, I could floo him and…arrgh!" There was a sound rather like a metallic landslide and the feet disappeared from view.

"Arthur! Arthur! Are you all right?!" Narcissa leaped forwards and stuck her head inside.

"Oh, Merlin's earmuffs!" Arthur cursed in an echoing voice, accompanied by a noise his wife interpreted as a large saucepan lid rolling round in circles. "I'm fine, Bunnykins, don't worry! I just caught the edge of the shelf with the handle of…ooh! Oh, I say! There it is! And is that…? No, it can't be! I thought this one had fallen victim to the twins years ago!"

With Arthur in the mood to tinker with long-forgotten treasures, she knew there would be no prospect of getting sense from him on any other subject, she decided to defer her questions about his father's portrait for the moment. She had about two hours to spare before she needed to be back and start preparing food, so, steeling herself for the prospect of conversation with Aunt Walburga, she went to ask Harry for the keys and counter-spells to Grimmauld Place.

…….

There was much less to look at than Severus had imagined. The boxes turned out to be rather empty, leading him to try out various spells for concealment-detection, to no avail. There was, however, the sensation of lingering enchantment and sitting alone in the musty, abandoned attic space, silent and furnished only with memories from the life of a long-dead woman, he felt that his mere presence here had triggered some spell to make things disappear.

He knew of charms which made documents combust on a certain date, or on the demise of their caster, so it was certainly possible that his touch on the lid of the first under-filled box had destroyed something intended for Eileen's eyes only.

Cautiously, he reached in to see what remained. Her Hogwarts admission letter signed by the Headmaster. A gobstone in a small velvet pouch, which turned out to be engraved with her name, the word 'captain' and the year 1954. A roll of parchment, the black handwriting faded to illegibility but a gushing comment in red from Slughorn was still clearly visible underneath big, bold letters: 'A.B.O'. ABO was a grade of Sluggy's own invention. Absolutely Bloody Outstanding, if Snape remembered correctly. He had usually managed one of those per term, or an 'S.D.' (Super Dooper!). Rumour had it that Evans had once got an 'F.B.', which could only stand for …Brilliant. His mum must have been especially proud of this essay to keep it so long, so he was sorry it could no longer be read.

There were some legal papers relating to the death of her parents, which he pocketed in case the key to the mystery lay inside, cloaked in impenetrable lawyer-speak. The very last thing was a small leather gift-box, almost jammed into the corner of the carton. The name "Caboodles" was engraved in gold on the lid. Frowning, Severus picked it up. Caboodles was Diagon Alley's top jeweller, selling custom-made treasures of the very highest quality. Severus had never yet managed to summon enough courage to step through the forbidding door, braving not only bruising security but the even more fearsome withering disdain from the staff. Lucius, needless to say, had been a regular in the old days.

He flipped up the lid to reveal a necklace, made of silver, no, white gold, with a cluster of little diamonds and emeralds forming a teardrop-shaped pendant. Snape had no way of telling whether the sparkling stones were real, but the redoubtable name on the their box gave a strong hint.

He closed the lid with a snap, hoping he was mistaken. He did not like to think of all the times the family had struggled, when Tobias had been unemployed or his union had been on strike; when the clock had disappeared from the mantel, only to reappear in the window of the pawn-broker's shop. Quite a few things would retire from family life at these difficult moments, including Tobias. He, however, usually resurfaced a short while after pub closing time, hammering on the front door then staggering loudly up the stairs, a lot easier to reclaim than their valuables.

At times like these, there had been no money to feed the gas meter, so no muggle heat or cooking and Eileen had been exhausted from throwing one warming charm after another to try and keep her family from freezing during the bleak winters. Meals had been mostly potato or bread, his clothes had been mostly darns and patches, but they had at least been able to exist thanks to magic.

Now it was shocking to learn that Eileen had been sitting on a potential fortune in jewellery through all those struggles, and he felt ill for a second. True, the trinket _could_ have come from her grandmother - the only relative about whom she had ever spoken without malice - which would account for her reluctance to part with it. Somehow that theory was not as plausible as the idea of it having been a gift from her mysterious man.

His real father.

He closed his eyes for a second to try and come to terms with this fabulously expensive love token having been hidden above his bedroom all the while that the Snape family misery had been acted out below. It could only have come from a lover. Why else would he have refused to part with it under such trying circumstances?

One last search of the loft revealed a star-shaped tin badge bearing the word 'Sheriff', which he had worn day and night during the period of his obsession with the Wild West. He slid it into his pocket with the Caboodle's box and the Christmas play photograph and climbed down the loft ladder.

…….

"She hasn't spoken since Kreacher left," Harry looked doubtful. "Not even any screaming. It's like she's finally given up."

Narcissa tried anyway. Harry had not been able to do very much with the house in Grimmauld Place, since the darkness and the grime seemed to cling to every nook. She doubted even Lucius' special decorative talents would be able to transform it into a place anyone would happily agree to live in.

"Aunt Walburga? Can you hear me? It's Narcissa. Little Cissy! Hello?"

There was no sound. The back of a head was visible off in the distance, but the figure made no movement. "Walburga? Mrs Black? Aunty?"

Harry was perched on the stairs, picking at a loose piece of wallpaper with his bitten nails, apparently not keen to be in the house for even a short time.

"Do you mind me asking what this is about?"

"I'm sorry, Harry," Narcissa gave a rueful smile. "It's not my secret to tell."

"OK. I ought to tell you that I can't help but be a bit suspicious of anything to do with Sirius' family, especially if it concerns Lucius Malfoy," he looked charmingly embarrassed to admit it, making her want to go and ruffle his hair.

"It's nothing sinister," Narcissa supposed that in his position, she would be worried too. "It's to do with something that happened a long time ago, connected with Severus rather than Lucius. I'm sorry to be so mysterious."

"Ha. If it's to do with Snape then it can only be mysterious," he shrugged. "Let's try something else." He got up, pulled out his wand and started banging it on the frame. "Hoi! Mrs Black! You nasty old bag! Wake up! This is Harry Potter, I'm a half-blood and a Gryffindor, the godson of your disgrace of a son, I'm only 26 and I own your house! My best friends are a Weasley and a muggle-born and we're planning a big drunken party where we completely trash this miserable old place! Mrs Black? Come on, Walburga! Wally! Hoi!"

When this outburst failed to elicit a response, Narcissa had to agree that nothing would.

"Can we go now?" He kept glancing around him as though afraid of what might be lurking in the shadows, which no one who knew the property could really blame him for.

"Of course. I'm sorry to have wasted your time," she picked up her handbag and made for the door, reflecting that it might be very difficult to get any useful information out of the old, dead purebloods.

"Not a problem. I'm glad she's stopped shouting, not just because of the noise, but because it was actually quite distressing to see her so upset at what happened to her once-proud family. Oh, no offence! I didn't mean you," he added hastily. "It was hard to speak to Kreacher too."

"Kreacher?" Narcissa stopped in the doorway. "What happened to him? Is he…" she gestured lightly towards the elf-heads in their dusty glass case on the wall.

"No! How could you think that!"

"He might have done it himself," she tried to keep the defensiveness out of her voice.

"What, cut his own head off, stuffed it, opened the case, displayed it next to the others then closed it again afterwards?" Cissa was impervious to the bite of youthful sarcasm, having been a mother and step-mother for a while now.

"Never underestimate a house-elf," she replied simply.

He pushed past her to open the front door and usher her out onto the doorstep so he could reset the wards. The action seemed to calm him a little.

"He's in the Dunscrubbin Elf Retirement Home," he said quietly.

The conjunction of the words 'elf' and 'retire' jarred in Narcissa's head but she held her tongue, remembering that she had heard the well-meaning muggleborn Hermione mention Dunscrubbin before. One of her many projects, one supposed, though it was impossible to imagine Kreacher sitting idle, just because he was considered too old to be useful. He had always been so active in the surreptitious way of good elves, rarely seen but always somehow abreast of everything happening in the life of his adored mistress and her family. And her extended family. And most of the other pure-blooded families. Ah. She decided to take her own advice and remember to never underestimate a house-elf.

Narcissa smiled at Harry.

"Tell me, where exactly is Dunscrubbin?"

…….

"…if they can't find it there, then it must have been destroyed," said Moody. "I was convinced there was someone planted in the heart of that department, covering their tracks, so any evidence may well all have been removed."

"Right, thanks Alastor," sighed Kingsley, wondering if all the damage done to the Ministry during the war, both coincidentally and in malice, would ever be rectified in his lifetime. "I'll hand it over to the MLE and see if they can navigate this particular chessboard. See you tomorrow."

"Bye," nodded Mad-eye. He turned to leave the office, but paused and turned back. The Minister looked up, knowing that Moody's hunches, suspicions and afterthoughts were usually worth listening to. When the old auror spoke, his words were deliberate. "Speaking of chess, I am wondering whether the White Queen is still on the board, or if she has been removed."

The old codes had been deployed frequently during the war as a security measure, so they were still second-nature to the players. Today, Kingsley understood immediately which individual and situation were being referred to, though he gave a mildly reproachful purse of his lips at the word 'queen'.

"_She_ is still very much involved in the game," he answered. "There is no particular strategy which would necessitate her removal."

Moody ground his remaining teeth.

"You sound very sure of that," he stared piercingly at Kingsley. "She has always made mysterious moves."

"On this occasion, the move was not of her own making."

"Then whose?" It was a growl of mistrust. "The...Queen Consort I suppose?"

"No-oo," Shacklebolt struggled with the metaphor for a second. "We discovered that the Queen Mother had had something brewing, many years ago, which only came to light this week."

"Mother? Brewing?" Moody stared, incredulous, then his expression changed completely.

Only twice in his career at the Ministry had Kingsley ever seen Mad-eye have trouble with his false leg, so well attuned he was at manipulating it up staircases, around sharp corners and under fire in battle. Now, however, it twitched and jerked sideways and Alastor went over like a sack of potatoes before Kingsley could help him.

"Are you all right?" He pitched forward and grasped him under the armpit.

Moody had obviously done himself some harm, as his face had gone pink and he was puffing heavily. It was a few seconds before he could speak.

"Damned leg!" he spat.

"What happened?" Kingsley wondered if he should call the mediwizards, so great was the shock on his friend's face.

"Nothing," he said.

"Nothing? But…"

"Nothing!" roared Moody, going from pink to puce. "Absolutely nothing happened!"

Kingsley frowned, not quite sure what Moody was trying to deny with such vehemence.

x


	8. Chapter 8

Author's Note:**WARNING** for one bit of bad language (which I'm actually quite proud of), and **something VERY SQUICKY to do with sex** but not graphically described. Nothing involving children, animals or non-con though.

I've borrowed from the official Black Family Tree again, which can be found in the very useful HP Lexicon. In 1958, Druella and Cygnus Black had already got their daughters Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa, but Walburga (she of the disapproving portrait) and Orion Black were still childless. I've decided that the latter couple had been married for a number of years before Sirius turned up.

And Cedrella Black was scorched off the tapestry for marrying Septimus Weasley.

Thanks x

…….

2007

Dunscrubbin looked nothing like a place of rest.

It was a huge, sprawling building with low ceilings and lots of chimneys merrily smoking away. In the front garden, two ancient elves were straining to push an enormous lawnmower, others were on their knobbly old knees weeding a flowerbed, and one in some kind of magical floating chair was raking the gravel into attractive patterns. All of them stopped work to bow in Narcissa's direction as she passed.

The entrance hall was similarly full of doddering elves, polishing, brushing, mopping and dusting with the same expressions of contented determination. It seemed that the word 'retirement' was not something house-elves really understood.

"Hello," Narcissa greeted a young elf with a clipboard behind the grand reception desk. "I was hoping to visit an elf named Kreacher, if he is at home."

"Yes, Mistress! Kreacher is being here! Is you sure that you is really wanting to be seeing him, Mistress? Winky is warning you that Kreacher is being one very grumpy elf!" Winky blinked at her, the picture of concern.

"Oh, don't worry Winky, I've known him all my life. I am well aware of his temperament," she smiled conspiratorially.

"That is very good!" Winky grinned shyly. "Only Mistress Hermione is trying last week to be cheering him up! Oh, Mistress! Was not nice, no, not nice! Kreacher is not liking that sort of thing at all!"

Kreacher's room was in the darkest, dampest corner of the attic. According to Winky, he had sneered at all the other cheerful rooms until, in despair, she had suggested this one. He had taken to it immediately, and had requested a hammer and some nails to board up the window to prevent things like birdsong disturbing him. All of the elves could request as much or as little to do as they liked, and Kreacher kept his bony old fingers busy most of the day cleaning tarnished silver and polishing brass.

"Little Mistress Cissy? Can it really be you, sweet young Mistress, come into this horrible building to visit useless old Kreacher?" He looked more feeble than the last time she had seen him, but the whining voice was just the same.

"Yes, Kreacher. It's really me," she smiled and moved forward, the better to see him in the gloom of the room and found herself looking into large, milky eyes. "Oh. You can't see me, can you?"

"It is a torment to me that I cannot, Mistress, for Miss Cissy has always been the prettiest witch in the world. The eyes is being no more use to Kreacher, but he sees you, Miss, sees you up here," he raised a shaking hand and pressed a finger to his forehead. "Sees Mistress with ribbons in her pigtails and her favourite pink dress! A treat to even look at! Treat!"

Narcissa swallowed a lump in her throat, unsure exactly why it was there. She put herself in the mindset of the surly, blind old servant, who was clearly disappointed with the way the world had turned out.

"Kreacher, how would you like to perform one last service for the Black family?" In his world, she was all that remained of the Dynasty, Andromeda having ceased to exist as surely as the stitching which represented her on the old tapestry the moment she eloped. Cissa's choice of words had been just right. He put down the fish-fork he had been buffing and sat up straighter in the chair.

"Mistress! An honour! Be telling Kreacher, Miss Cissy, and he will be undertaking anything at all, even unto his own death!" The sightless eyes still managed to look attentive at the prospect of being of use to his beloved family.

"Tell me everything you know, everything you ever overheard from Aunt Walburga, Uncle Orion or anyone at all, which concerned Eileen Prince."

The upstanding servile fervour faded into his other common posture - hunched and sulking.

"Blood-traitor, Mistress," he muttered, almost growling.

"Yes, that's her," sighed Narcissa.

"Rejected nice, pure wizard in order to mate with _filth,_" he spat.

Narcissa leaned in closer. Walburga had refused to speak to her, but this was almost the same thing - certainly the same vocabulary and opinions.

"Yes?"

"Even worse than the foul and disgusting blood-sibling of dear Mistress Cissy," froth began to form at the corners of his mouth.

"Andromeda?" she clarified, darkly amused that most people would have described her other sister thus.

"Yes! Filthy disgrace to noblest, most honourable house! Filthy sibling of Mistress Cissy at least took her treacherous self away and never again tainted good magical society with her befouled presence," he stopped for a moment to catch his breath, before assuming the same venomous tone. It obviously required effort. "The shame of the poor Prince family _showed herself!_ My poor Mistress could not bear the idea of it! The cursed traitress was seen in locations where good wizards may have been going, even after linking herself to that creature, and though some treated her in the proper manner for committing such a heinous affront, some others was becoming traitors themselves by associating with her."

Narcissa feared the ancient elf was having some kind of seizure, but just as she rose to summon Winky, or some other carer, his apoplexy subsided enough to allow him to breathe, albeit with a whistle which had not been there before.

"Who associated with her?" she had to ask it. With anyone else, she would have ended the conversation for producing so much distress, but Kreacher had always loved badmouthing wrongdoers.

"Oh, Mistress," he shook his head. "Kreacher hears from the elves that she was sometimes at Malfoy Manor, but cannot believe that glorious magical family would ever have brooked such horror. Must have been evil lies! It is for sure that she was being often with the blood-traitor Weasel, which was only to be expected from such scum."

"A Weasley?"

"Septimus Weasley, it called itself," sneered the elf. "Together alone in restaurants, together alone in parks, together alone, although him was married to bad bad Cedrella Black, and Bad-Prince married to filth! A witch and a wizard what is married to others ought not to be together alone so much. A scandal, Mistress, a terrible scandal!"

Narcissa suddenly found the room too close and airless, and swiftly thanked Kreacher with a squeeze of the old hand before fleeing the retirement home as fast as possible.

Why had she agreed to poke around in matters which didn't really concern her? She wished none of that terrible conversation had taken place, because she now had to swallow the fact that Arthur's father might have been unfaithful to his mother, and that Severus might be his brother.

Severus, a Weasley! It was too awful to contemplate.

…….

1958

"Well, well, look what we have here! You've got a nerve showing yourself, Prince!"

"This is a public street, Black, I have just as much right to be here as you. And as you may have noticed, I'm not called Prince anymore."

"No, you've single-handedly destroyed that fine old dynasty, haven't you? You're a bloody disgrace to wizardkind!"

"You pay me too great a compliment, Mr Black. I have had a good deal of help in ruining the Prince family - from alcohol, insanity, gambling, duelling and inbreeding…by the way, how is your cousin? The one you married, I mean? Just as well you've not been able to have children, really."

"How dare you, you filthy, muggle-fucking…!"

"What a delightful morning! Look at those flowers! Hear those birds, singing in the trees! How nice to see you, Mrs Snape, Mr Black."

"Good morning, Professor."

"A very good morning to you, my dear. Oh, Mr Black, are you leaving so soon?"

"I'm not hanging around here. Something stinks." Crack 

"The daffodils, perhaps? Oh, he's gone. What a pity. Now, Mrs Snape, are you a busy woman nowadays or do you have a moment to sit and enjoy the morning air with an old man? Hm?"

"Er, OK. If you like. Sir."

"I'm not your teacher anymore, Mrs Snape. Grown-ups call me Albus. Lemon drop?"

"Thank you. And you know it's Eileen. I'm not really used to being called Snape yet, to be honest."

"How are you finding married life, my dear? It was very exciting to read about your rejection of Mr Potter and subsequent move to the muggle world - I imagine it took a significant amount of courage."

"It felt like the right thing to do."

"What an interesting answer."

"…"

"And an even more interesting silence. Naturally, I don't mean to pry…"

"Ha!"

"Well, not through any malicious motivation, at least. I can't help but wonder why such a well-behaved young lady would choose to flout her parents' wishes and the norms of the social group in which she was raised for any other reason than love."

"What makes you think I don't love my husband?"

"Because marrying him, and I quote: 'felt like the right thing to do'. I'm afraid you lacked any kind of adoring glow or lover's fervour when you delivered those words. It sounded more like you were justifying dropping a player from the gobstones team than expressing the love of your life. Forgive me for being so personal, Eileen, I am wondering whether you are quite all right."

"Why should you care? You never cared for anyone from Slytherin before. Why bother now that I'm not even a child in your charge?"

"Neatly deflected, my dear."

"I could say the same, Pr…Albus."

"Aha, touché! So, may I try again to coax a response out of you?"

"I'm not sure my reasons make sense."

"That is so often the case with actions motivated by emotion. Try me. I was young once too, you know."

"Why do old people always say that?"

"We are trying to remind ourselves of the fact. Now, you were saying?"

"I'll try, but I can't guarantee you're going to understand it. I don't know how you much of what goes on at Hogwarts you are really aware of or how much of it is play-acting to unnerve everyone, but you may know that I said and did some terrible things while I was at school. I bullied people for their lack of pure breeding, I've sneered at and taunted younger kids - really, I am utterly ashamed of how I used to behave back when I believed that the purity of one's blood was the only thing that mattered in life. I was a brat and it's hard to live with myself when I remember the awful person I used to be."

"And yet, a certain half-human failed wizard with no family or social graces became a close friend of yours."

"How did you…? Oh, of course, you know everything. Yes, as I got older I began to question why we valued blood so highly. Once you stop believing that purity matters one toss, the rest of the ancient social order begins to look rather pathetic and one can't help but laugh at the foolish bigots who behave so pompously."

"Ah. The Riddikulus theory. No one can fear anything which looks a bit silly."

"Or respect it, in my case. My parents… …"

"Yes, Eileen? Oh dear. Would you like a handkerchief?"

"Got one, thanks. Excuse me. You can imagine. The pressure was intolerable. I knew after a few years of trying to avoid their horrible plots for me - Charlus Potter! Ugh! Can you imagine?! He's twenty years older than me, nearly bald and has a complete one-track mind…"

"Really?"

"Quidditch, I mean! And he was the best of a very bad bunch so I decided I wasn't going to do as I was told. The only way to stop them from marrying me off to some pure-blooded moron was to get married to someone else."

"So you chose a muggle, to create the maximum parental outrage?"

"No! Well, yes, but not just for that reason. I had said such awful things about muggles being less than human or worthy only of enslavement or death as some kind of sport for wizards. Merlin, I'm so embarrassed now. I thought that…that…oh, I told you this wouldn't make sense!"

"You were trying to atone for your misplaced youthful opinions by going from one extreme to the other?"

"…"

"Eileen?"

"I suppose that's it. Sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it."

"…"

"Albus?"

"No. It does not sound stupid at all."

"It hasn't helped though. I don't know what I thought I'd achieve, but it's killed my mother and made a lot of people angry without changing society one tiny bit. It's so frustrating, knowing that people go on believing those stupid things without ever realising that it's nonsense and nothing can be done to stop it."

"I wonder if you've noticed that the prejudices you describe are getting stronger and more popular all the time?"

"Are they? You mean it wasn't always this way?"

"Intolerance and small-mindedness have always been and will always be present, unfortunately, but I fear events are now being set in motion which may have grave consequences for all of us. I am watching storm clouds beginning to gather on the distant horizon."

"Leaving us all powerless in the face of the force of nature. Oh great! We're all screwed."

"Not necessarily. You are correct that it is impossible even with the strongest magic to stop nature in its tracks, but there are ways of fighting it."

"Fighting?"

"Certainly, if you are willing; if you are prepared."

…….

2007

"Welcome to Caboodle's, Mr Snape. It's an honour to see you here," a Patil greeted him. Judging by the bright pink outfit, reminding him for a painful second of Albus, it was the silly twin, not the clever one. "It may interest you to know that we have a special offer on engagement rings at present!" She flashed him a suggestive smile, causing him to jolt with what could only be described as panic.

"What?!" he squeaked.

"Fifteen per cent off all square-cut solitaires until the end of the month. Julian is very proud of the new range of his 'n' his rings we launched last year. He would be delighted to discuss yours and Mr Malfoy's requirements…"

"Miss Patil," he offered his sternest glare, hoping to make up for having been caught off guard. Marriage? He hadn't even considered such a thing! The muggles had enacted legislation for same-sex "civil partnerships" at a time when his attention had been determinedly focussed on wizarding wartime matters and since the death of Voldemort he had not yet thought of himself doing…that. Lucius was divorced now, it was true, but whether he was in any rush to be legally bound to Severus was not something they had ever thought about. Unnervingly, the girl clearly had and was grinning at him. "Miss Patil. I have no interest in…those objects," he waved his hand dismissively at the brochure of rings with which she was attacking him. "I am given to understand that this establishment produces one-off pieces for its clients."

"Yes, sir," she was only disappointed for a second. Then the bright smile returned. "If you would like to speak to Julian about something extra-special, I can floo him at once. Last month he produced a charming set of conjugal nipple-rings…"

"This item appears to have originated here," he interrupted her by slamming the box down on the counter. "I assume you have some manner of archive, wherein you have information regarding its original purchaser?"

Parvati grew serious at last. She took the box and lifted the lid cautiously.

"I'm afraid that we are not at liberty to reveal any personal information about our clientele."

Severus had hoped he would not have to stoop to this. In all the years he had been an employee of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, he had never once abused his power for personal ends. Getting Lucius out of Azkaban had been more of a personal near-deathbed request to whomever had been standing within his blurring vision at the time. The fact that, despite the constant agony and sporadic delirium following Bellatrix and Penelope Clearwater's assassination attempt, he had been fully aware that the shadowy figure promising to do as he asked had been Rufus Scrimgeour, was nobody's business but his own. He hoped this counted as a mitigating circumstance.

The badge went clink as it made contact with the glass counter-top. He looked at her levelly, watching with a small amount of satisfaction as her eyes widened.

"What's a sheriff?" she asked curiously.

Snape scowled as he stuffed the toy badge back in his robe and pulled out his intended trump card. The silver star, inscribed with the MLE's initials and crest was only used on the most important law enforcement business. It demanded immediate co-operation. Usually, it received it.

"I'll go and fetch the ledgers," said Parvati.

It took her a little while to search through the records. Severus suggested she begin with the years of Eileen's teens and twenties, though he realised that expensive trinkets like this were often passed down through the generations, or re-set from brooches to bracelets, from hatpins to beard-gems. He was prepared to have to wait for a long time. It came as a great surprise when a mere five minutes later, the Patil girl looked up from a huge ledger with another nauseatingly soppy expression.

"We can easily have it re-set as an engagement ring, sir! A lot of people do that with heirlooms."

"I thought I had made it plain that I am in no way interested in engagement rings!" Really, it was too much! Had heterosexuals been putting up with all these interfering insinuations throughout history?

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir," she failed to look sorry in the least. "I thought with this pendant being a family piece…"

"I don't recall mentioning anything in connection with my mother," he replied stiffly.

"No, er, I," clearly confused, she beckoned him over. Her immaculately manicured fingernail indicated a line dating from the 1950s sales ledger. She obligingly turned the book round for him to read.

First came the description, which made little sense to him, excepting the words "diamond" and "emerald." Then came the price, which would have made a less stoic man whistle, or even goggle. Then came the identity of the buyer.

He read the name and address three or four times over before the words sank into his brain. It was impossible, surely. There had to be some kind of mistake.

He would not accept it. He refused to even entertain it. There was too much at stake for this to be the truth.

Abraxas Malfoy simply could not be his father!

x


	9. Chapter 9

Snape was walking very briskly for a man with no destination in mind.

He marched the full length of Diagon Alley with such speed that the late afternoon shoppers pressed themselves against the nearest building to get out of his way, then out into muggle London, where he scattered tourists and locals alike with the same demeanour of urgent purpose. He negotiated his way between irate taxi drivers, abusive cyclists and ebullient students collecting for charity without even engaging his brain, following the nonsensical route his feet had chosen to pace around the West End. No matter how fast he walked, the terrible truth kept catching up with him.

Eventually, his legs grew tired and the few ribs which never quite recovered after he was attacked forced him to slow and eventually grind to a halt in a little patch of green in the middle of a bustling square. He glared evilly at the two camp young men gossiping as they smoked on the nearest bench until they glanced nervously at each other and walked away. He lowered himself onto the hard wood and realised that he was almost exhausted. He leaned forwards and rested his elbows on his knees.

Oh, Merlin. This was awful. He wondered why he had ever deemed it necessary to go poking around long-buried secrets which didn't technically matter. Now his precious, hard-won happiness and stability had been ruined forever and he wanted to scream in frustration.

His lover was also his brother.

Parts of his brain were insisting that if the expert, Professor Heelicks, was right and the Legitimising Potion had replaced all of his natural Malfoy genes with those of Tobias Snape, then he did not actually share any genetic material with Lucius and so nothing was wrong.

The rest of his conscience, however, was returning with the tenacity of a niffler in a diamond mine to the fact that they had both been sired by the same man. It was a horrible thought and Lucius was bound to be revolted and leave him once he found out - that was, if he hadn't already unearthed the scandalous news for himself and packed his bags. A wizard as attractive and talented at Lucius Malfoy would have no difficulty making his own way in the world with his decorating business, and it would take not time at all for him to find a handsome new lover. One to whom he was not closely related.

Snape sat back upright sharply as the idea struck him for the first time that he was probably not naturally ugly. His mother had been no great beauty, but Abraxas, like all of his dynasty, was good looking and well-proportioned, possessing nothing like the unhealthy weedyness which Tobias and therefore Severus had inherited from generations of Snapes working long days in cramped and dark conditions in the Scoursby woollen mills. He spent a painful moment imagining how he would have looked, had Eileen not decided to alter him. A lot like Lucius, probably, though perhaps darker and less elegant, although the deportment and perfect speech may be learned rather than innate. He most certainly would not have had to suffer the burden of his terrible nose!

For years he had firmly believed that his life would have been so different had he been born attractive. People would have been much nicer to him as a child, he thought, and other children would have been more inclined to befriend him than beat him up. He would also surely have received some small portion of the Malfoy fortune (most of the great families had unwritten rules for how to deal with illegitimate branches of their tree, as such accidents happen often when marriages are arranged for expedience rather than love) and therefore been much better dressed and brought up. In addition to the difference to his life a little cash would have made, having Malfoy for a father would have meant he had a pure-blooded pedigree to impress even Walburga Black!

Why on earth had his mother ruined all of this potential and condemned him to the childhood struggles which lead to such a bitter and harsh existence? There must have been a good reason. Certainly being the bastard son of such an important man would not have been a light burden to carry - if nothing else, Lucius would probably have hated his guts - but Severus failed to see how it could have been worse than growing up a working class half-blood and then having to survive in the Slytherin snake-pit.

Inevitably, his thoughts returned to Lucius and he realised that there was no way they could have got together had they known his parentage from the beginning. Perhaps he ought to be grateful for what his mother had done, although she could not have known that particular plus-side of her actions back in 1959. The big question now was whether or not he ought to tell his lover about this development. Lucius had a right to know, certainly, but Severus dreaded the inevitable disgust and desertion with which the announcement would be met.

He had no choice. It would have to remain a secret. He needed to call off all investigation and convince Lucius, Narcissa, Shacklebolt and the rest to never mention the matter again.

He stood suddenly and found himself face to face with a young woman. There was nothing odd about that, as he had been drawing this most private of conclusions in a public place after all; nor was her striking outfit of ankle boots, puffball skirt and huge bouffant curls particularly extraordinary for Central London. The thing which made Snape raise his eyebrows and immediately put himself on his guard was the identity of the girl.

"Aren't full robes a bit much in muggle London, even if it is Soho?" asked Hermione jovially.

Snape scowled and looked around him, registering for the first time that he had been sitting in Soho Square, surrounded by a collection of oddballs with freakish haircuts and jerky cocaine mannerisms who could have worked in no other industry than the media. Dah-ling.

"Muggle women dressed like that when I was your age," he countered.

"Yes, well," she looked self-conscious for a second and fiddled with a huge blue dangly earring. "The eighties are back in fashion at the moment. If we want the band to succeed in the muggle charts we all have to play the game, even a dull manager. Oh, excuse me."

Something began jingling in her shiny silver handbag, and Snape crossed his arms over his chest as she barked instructions into a matching shiny silver mobile phone. On the other side of the square, a group of Hare Krishnas appeared, dancing and singing their way towards Oxford Street and being totally ignored by everyone, not that they seemed to mind.

"Tell their lawyers to talk to our lawyers. The Griminals have no comment to make," she snapped the phone shut without saying goodbye and rolled her eyes.

"Ah, yes. How is the band?" Desperate for distraction for thoughts of his own situation, he hoped she would start one of her long and entertaining rants.

"They're are fine, thank you. Greg was voted sexiest bad-boy alive by some women's magazine last Wednesday and the new album has been in the charts across most of Europe and the Americas for weeks. They played a storming show in Istanbul last night and have tonight off, thank god, so I can go to the Weasleys' this evening, although if Millicent continues to wear her favourite t-shirt defaming a well-known international brand of coffee-shop, we might have another lawsuit on our hands."

"And Vincent?"

"It appears he has just entered the Rock 'n' Roll hall of infamy by showing off his new gold-plated drum kit. Certain portions of the rock press were most excited by it," she sighed heavily. "They're all fine. They're having a great time and Mrs Goyle insists on going on every tour so I don't have to worry about them getting into real trouble. You're always welcome to come, you know. We have muffling charms backstage so it's not too loud."

Severus reflected to himself that there were probably few events on earth he would be more keen to avoid than a Griminals concert, despite the overwhelming sense of pride he felt that Gregory Goyle, sorry, Gregory Grim, as he now styled himself, Vince Vyle and Millicent Brilliant had managed to survive the war and become the wizarding world's biggest band. The muggle world was taking a little more time to conquer, but Hermione was working on it. He still wasn't quite certain how she had ended up as their manager, but he suspected that she had witnessed some piece of ineptitude perpetrated in the early days by her predecessor, Zacharias Smith, and been forced to show them how to do it better.

Her other projects, such as the retirement home for elves and administration of the various charities for those left disabled or destitute by the war seemed to benefit rather than lose by her involvement with the music industry. Multi-tasking was one of Granger's many strong points.

"What are you doing here, anyway? I heard you were ill," Hermione spoke while dabbing at the screen of her phone with a little metal wand, so missed his grimace.

"I'm fine. It wasn't as it seemed and that's as much as I can say," he returned crisply.

"Hmm, politics, I suppose. So can you come to the barbecue at the Burrow this evening? I have to look over some marketing contracts but I shouldn't be too late. Do try. If you're there, Draco might come."

"He's very busy with work," Severus defended his young friend with the automatic excuse before he remembered to whom he was speaking.

"I doubt that a junior healer can be busier than the head of the MLE or the manager of the Griminals," Hermione gave him a withering look. "Yet we manage the odd social function, don't we, Severus? If he still can't cope with the fact that his mother married Arthur…"

"It's not that," said Snape quickly.

"Then what is it?" she fixed him with an unnerving, intent stare.

Fortunately, he was saved by a tinny rendition of the Ride of the Valkyries. The young witch began yelling into her phone again, paused to quickly peck him on the cheek and stormed off down Greek Street, slapping bright leaflets about something called "Griminal Records" on every flat surface.

Snape sat back down slowly. If Lucius was his brother, then that made Draco his nephew, which was a more welcome piece of news than most of the others that afternoon. He supposed that he had already been treating Draco as one would a nephew for all his life, but to think there was a real blood relationship between them was actually quite nice. Snape had lived all his life as an isolated creature, an only child cut off from any surviving magical relatives because of his impure blood; Tobias' small cluster of family had either quarrelled with him or just slipped out of touch. It would be good to have one or two relations like that…

What was he thinking?! He smacked his hand hard against his forehead, furious with himself for having allowed his attention to wander from the most important issue at stake. It would _not_ be nice to be related to Draco because that would mean he was committing incest with Draco's father and his own half-brother, which was wrong and weird and slightly nauseating, especially as he had no way of telling how the love of his life would react.

He cursed and wrung his hands in frustration until he realised that a few of the Soho muggles were staring at him. Hermione had been right to pull him up for openly wearing wizarding robes in the street, he remembered. Although in the West End of London there were enough artists, goths and street performers to get away with that sort of thing, as head of Law Enforcement he ought to be setting an example by keeping any hint of the existence of his world a secret.

There could be no more procrastinating. He had to go home. To Lucius.

…….

1958

"What?! You must be joking!" Eileen stared at the auror with disbelief.

"I don't find any of this funny," said Alastor Moody, his scarred face grim. "It is imperative that we have some idea of what's going on. Even the vaguest hint may be of use."

"But there is no way on earth I'd be welcome there! They would rather burn the place to the ground than admit me!" She leaned back in her seat with wry amusement, wondering what on earth she had become involved in, if this was the best plan her new associates had created. Grindelwald must have been much more incompetent than history claimed, if these men had managed to bring him down.

"Not so, Snape," Moody always looked fierce, but Eileen had noticed that he practically snarled each time he looked in her direction. She wondered whether it was misogyny, hatred of Slytherin or inverted snobbery, or if that was how he addressed everyone other than Albus.

"Merlin, Moody, all the curses you've taken over the years must have addled your brain! Don't you understand what happened when I married Tobias? I betrayed my family, my background even..."

"And you've sworn to do it again," he rapped, possibly with the same leer he used to try and intimidate dark wizards brought in for interrogation.

Eileen refused to show any sign of being cowed, although she hated the way he leaned forward and tried to glare right through her. Fortunately, her last few years at Hogwarts had been a great lesson in how to conceal one's true feelings, as all the prejudiced pure-bloods in her house had thrown around offensive ideas they dared anyone else to be foolish enough to contradict. Occasionally, someone had been 'dealt with' for disagreeing, and Eileen had been either sensible or cowardly enough not to risk public humiliation and hexing by speaking her mind. At the time, she had been proud of her skill for self-preservation, but now she felt only embarrassment at having been too weak to be different. Now, she was trying to be a better person.

"Yes. And I will keep doing it, if it can help to combat this tide of…stupidity which is washing around at the moment. That's why I'm here, but I had no idea you expected this!" She remained calm but allowed her voice to grow louder.

"You're a resourceful woman, Snape. You'll come up with some way," now he was mocking her, there was no mistaking it. He still glared, but a thin smirk of amusement at her refusal to stop fighting made her want to jab her fingers into those hate-filled eyes.

"But Abraxas Malfoy?! He was always one of the worst, him and T…that Riddle boy. They would curse me on sight if I ventured anywhere near the Manor."

"Our sources tell us Riddle is abroad at this time, in a location I am not prepared to disclose, so you needn't worry about him," he stopped smiling and Eileen wondered why he was so well-informed in the whereabouts of Tom Riddle. She had seen him working as junior shop assistant and running-monkey for Borgin & Burke's a couple of years ago, which had been rather amusing after all his pompous orations about the Glorious and Mighty Destiny of the True-Born Wizard. He had been standing outside the shop being shouted at by an old lady for having chipped the edge of her new foe-glass through not carrying it properly, looking sheepish but still devilishly handsome.

"But Malfoy..." she tried again to convince Moody how flimsy his plan looked from where she sat.

"Malfoy has other things on his mind," he interrupted again before she could even begin. "His wife is dying. He will be vulnerable and more likely to let things slip."

"I doubt it!" She scoffed openly at his Gryffindor assumptions. "Most pure-blood marriages have little to do with the more caring emotions, especially where such a grand family is concerned."

"Actually, our sources tell us that he is devoted to her and their boy," Moody was scowling again, probably at her ongoing refusal to break.

"But I still don't see…"

"Look, _I_ don't want you involved in all this!" He flung himself up out of the chair and loomed over her, close enough for her to see that his collar length honey-blonde hair was thinning, though he could only be in his early thirties, and a gruesome looking scar which began on his forehead disappeared off somewhere across the back of his head. She focussed on the scar, rather than on his voice and piercing brown eyes, both of which got sharper the angrier he became. "I'm not risking my Ministry career to work with Albus on things they are too flaming dense to consider, just so I can sit here talking nonsense with little girls! The toffs are up to something and we want to know_who _and_what_ and _why_ so we can stop it before anything serious happens. Heaven knows why, but he thinks you are capable of finding out things they would never dream of telling oiks like us in a million years. You were born one of them. You've snakeish deception in your blood and a silver spoon in your mouth, so if anyone's going to succeed in infiltrating their world it's you. But you're a pampered little bitch, your record proves you're unstable and potentially a liability to everyone who's connected with this. If you decide that this kind of activity might make you break a fingernail, then _walk out of that door_ and go back to your doting lovestruck muggle and I won't give a warlock's cuss!"

Blood was rushing in Eileen's ears by the time he had finished his assassination of her character, but she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of making her cry. Instead, she did the thing she knew would cause the maximum irritation. She forced the upset out of her eyes and smiled beatifically.

"Maybe I will, if that's how skilled you are at detective work. I should have known a Ministry desk-boy like you would lack the imagination for what Albus is proposing."

"You…what?!" He roared. She sweetened her smile even further as the phrase 'desk-boy' struck home. Moody had been barely her age when he had been involved in some of the bloodiest battles of the Grindelwald war - now he was something of a hero of tenacious, maverick justice. But he still had to kow-tow to the plodding bureaucracy of the MLE. And he had called her a little girl, when she was almost twenty and already married! Still smiling, she gently let rip.

"We live at number 42, Spinner's End, Scoursby. Just up from the canal. Come round. No, really, Auror Moody, I am officially inviting you to my home to see just how _pampered_ I am in the house my husband's factory allowed him to rent once he married. If you come at the beginning of the month there might be a biscuit with your tea but probably not towards the end. Or if you don't want to dirty your boots with muggle mud then you can visit my parents' house, where my dad sits, alone and quite mad, muttering to himself an occasionally throwing hexes at anyone who tries to come near, especially his estranged daughter."

"You made your bed, now lie in it!" Moody was furious, but also appeared confused. Eileen took this as a victory, having fought back when he had clearly expected to frighten her away. "You can't change things because life on the other side turned out to be less glamorous than in your precious dreams."

"I don't think I can change my own life now, but it's not too late for the rest of this mess. I screwed up and I don't want to see others making the same mistakes out of ignorance or by idolising self-seeking individuals - and if I have to leave my badly-made bed in Scoursby behind, then I'd like there to _be_ a wizarding world to come back to. If you don't trust me, then I don't give a stuff, but Albus does and he wants me to be involved in this…this whatever you call this thing."

He had backed off and was now sitting quietly on the edge of the armchair, but his eyes still bored into her. She tucked her hair behind her ears to make it plain that she wasn't trying to hide behind it. After a few seconds, he said:

"Order."

"I beg your pardon?" She demanded, with defiance.

"It's called an Order," the voice was softer now he had stopped spitting, but Eileen wasn't about to be placated after being called a bitch.

"OK," she continued. "This Order. He obviously thinks I can provide something which you cannot, so if you've got issues with my background, my age or my gender or whatever the bloody hell your problem is you can sod off back to your desk at the MLE and carry on putting paper into folders because Scrimgeour tells you to. Stick with your task and I'll do mine."

She rose, nodded curtly at him and swept out with her robes billowing behind her, unable to resist letting the door bang slightly for effect.

Albus entered a few moments later to find his young friend deep in thought, tapping first one foot, then the other in what the headmaster recognised as an outward show of inner unease.

"Ah, good afternoon, Alastor! How are you getting along with my newest agent?"

"She's young," he muttered, avoiding Albus' gaze.

"As were you, when you first decided to play your part in the war," he beamed, then stopped quickly as he remembered that the man before him was ageing much faster than he ought, thanks to the path down which the older man had guided him. He had always believed young people to be uniquely well suited to saving the world, but he sometimes forgot about the cost. Eileen Prince was as keen to do her bit now as Moody had been in the forties, and Albus needed the shamed pureblood girl now as much as he had needed the frighteningly skilled boy duellist back then. Disruption and even a new war might be coming. Could he afford to put the welfare of individuals above the survival of the world?

That was a thought for the pensieve. It was too heavy to be carried around in his head. He turned back to Moody, who was still ruminating with a most uncharacteristic intensity. "Alastor? Doesn't it hurt, grinding your teeth like that?"

"Sorry," he ran both hands through his hair and smiled at Dumbledore. "That blasted Slytherin wench just got under my skin for a minute."

"Good," said Albus seriously. "Let's hope she can do the same to Malfoy and co."

…….

Author's note: Yes, Moody still has two eyes and two legs! For now...


	10. Chapter 10

Author's Note: Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a nice break over the festive period. Thank you for staying with this fic!

It's been a while since I posted chapter 9, so here is a quick recap:

Narcissa thinks that Snape's real father was Septimus Weasley, after discovering through Kreacher that the two had been very close.

Lucius thinks it's Hagrid, after speaking to him about his special friendship with Eileen at Hogwarts.

Severus thinks it's Abraxas Malfoy, after finding a love-token from Abraxas to Eileen hidden in the attic at Spinner's End.

Myrtle knew about Eileen's crush on the very sexy friend of Malfoy Snr., Tom Riddle.

Moody's behaving oddly in the past and the present.

Dumbledore's portrait is being cryptic and unhelpful (funny, that!)

The whole story is compliant with Half-Blood Prince, but NOT Deathly Hallows.

I've been borrowing heavily from the Black family tree again.

Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns the characters, I am just playing about with them.

Thank you!

…….

2007

It made a great deal of sense, Lucius supposed.

As far as reasons to risk death by brewing and imbibing a dangerous potion went, carrying Hagrid's baby was a good one. Quite apart from birthing the huge child, which must still be a risk even though the monster genes would have been diluted to only a quarter, there could have been no pretence that the creature was her husband's. Bringing it into the wizarding world would have meant instant exposure and ridicule from most people for having consorted with some kind of giant and produced a big, stupid half-breed. In the muggle world, however, it would have been even more serious. For all the education Abraxas had given him about muggles, he was still unsure about how their complex society actually worked. He knew that according to the period in history and mindset of the neighbours, those with perceived abnormalities could be either embraced, paraded as entertainment for "normal" people to laugh at or even run out of town by a pitchfork-wielding mob.

It was only a gut feeling, but something made him doubt that the folk of Scoursby in January 1960 would have refrained from some sort of action. Though, being an industrial town, they may have had to use implements other than pitchforks for expunging local freaks.

Lucius banged his fist on his knee. Not a freak! He was talking about Severus! This was his dear Severus' very existence he was pondering, not some chapter of an inflammatory anti-muggle pamphlet.

"Am I tickling, Master Malfoy?" asked Peggy, looking up from the floor, where she was busy massaging aromatherapy oils into his feet.

"No, I'm just thinking about something," Lucius had a perfect arrangement with Severus' house-elf. He behaved with borderline polite detachment while she attended to his every whim. This, they both felt, was the proper order of things and a most refreshing piece of sense given the strange emotional direction wizarding life was now taking. Neither of them approved of the idea of elf retirement homes, or that the species were equal to humans and ought to behave as such. Lucius had decided that abusing his inferiors - such few as remained - was beneath him, yet he was in no hurry to try and insult Peggy by befriending her or trying to give her days off. The fact that Snape had gone to great lengths to correct her jarring natural elvish grammar made even easier. He found he almost never felt the urge to beat her for irritating the hell out of him by overusing the present continuous tense.

As soon as he had returned from wet and muddy Scotland he had dived into the bath and asked Peggy for a full pampering session, which never failed to raise his spirits and remind him that whatever else was happening, he was much better off than he would have been in Azkaban. He let his head fall back and groaned with pleasure, so relaxed and free that he started with shock ten minutes later when the door creaked open.

"Severus!" Lucius exclaimed. "You've been gone for ages! Did you find anything in Spinner's End?"

Despite the soft light from the scented candles bathing the room, Lucius could still tell that Severus looked bad. The rings under his eyes were as dark as bruises and his shoulders drooped under the weight of some heavy burden.

"Not much," he answered evasively. Lucius stared until he turned away under the pretence of hanging up his cloak. _He knows!_ thought Lucius suddenly. _He's found a love letter or something from Hagrid and he knows the unfortunate truth! _

"Enjoying your foot rub?" Asked Snape, in what seemed to be a falsely light tone.

"Oh yes," purred Lucius, playing the game by not asking important questions. Severus looked so dejected he felt terrible for having thought of him as being a freak of nature only seconds before, and found he needed to make it up to him. Without revealing his slip, of course. "But it would be even better with a nice kiss," he fished, knowing that Snape rarely resisted his charms.

This time, however, the other man visibly flinched.

"Thank you, Peggy," said Lucius, with cold finality. She glanced from one wizard to the other, taking in the tension which had appeared with her other master and vanished immediately with a small pop. There was a moment of silence.

"Please," said Severus quietly. "Don't end your massage on my account. I know how much you enjoy them."

"I believe I asked for a kiss," said Lucius with icy calmness. Snape swallowed.

"I've been in a mouldy old attic for most of the afternoon, I'm absolutely filthy and…"

"_Scourgify!_" The charm was cast with the tiniest flick of Malfoy's wand, sending a ripple of freshness through Snape's robes and hair and tingling his skin where the dust and sweat of the day was banished. Lucius assumed his most commanding tone. "There. Now, you will kiss me!"

Severus knew he ought to find another excuse. A coldsore. Halitosis. A non-existent muggle malady which he could claim to have picked up in Scoursby. Anything, in fact, which could stall the inevitable and give him time to formulate the best way to deliver the worst news. Had Lucius not been sitting there in with his silk dressing-gown falling slightly off one shoulder, lounging in relaxation but having ordered him in that stern, arrogant manner which Severus had loved since the first time he heard it, then there may have been a chance. But he was completely powerless in the face of this mesmerising sight. His treacherous feet brought him to heel at the side of this beautiful alluring creature and as soon as a came within reach, manicured hands shot upwards and pulled him down for a dizzying kiss.

Too deeply enthralled by the feel of Lucius' tongue and lips to think of any of his recent shocks, Severus barely registered the feel of something crushing under his boot. Three seconds later, however, Lucius was pushing him away and his own eyes were stinging as a hideously powerful stink of a cocktail of lavender, cloves, peppermint, peaches and who knew what else rolled over them. Lucius leaped out of the chair and shoved open the window, retching and gasping. Being more accustomed to bad smells from his years of brewing and surviving the Weasley twins' experiments, Severus blinked away the tears and looked down at the wreckage of Peggy's tray of concentrated aromatherapy oils.

Like smelling salts, the miasma brought Snape to his senses. He had no right to keep Lucius ignorant of the truth he had discovered in Caboodle's, even if his body had decided on his behalf that he was still wildly attracted to the man whom he knew to be his half-brother. He waited for some kind of revulsion to arrive at the thought of the kiss, but nothing happened, save for the streaming of his eyes as another wave of essence hit them. He risked a glance at the window frame and was rewarded with the sight of Lucius' silk-clad bottom sticking up as he leaned out to suck down lungfuls of fresh air, taunting him by being so delicious.

"We need to talk," said Snape later, when they had cleared up the bedroom as best they could and evacuated to the safety of the sitting room sofa. He casually rested a hand on Lucius' knee while he still had the opportunity for contact. Lucius' face became immediately grave.

"What is it?" he asked.

Snape hesitated, thinking of everything he was about to lose. Their happiness was still so new, still so special and wonderful, confessing the truth now would be like killing some tiny baby animal that had barely begun to live. It had been scarcely two years since Lucius had moved out of prison and into his bed and only a matter of months since he had truly accepted that he might want to stay forever. He had enjoyed a brief taste of the companionship, reliability and love which he had been missing for most of his life and which so many around him seemed to take for granted, now he was going to destroy everything and be left quite alone again. He ought never to have forgotten that good things only ever happened to other people. He swallowed and time began to slow down as he heard the movement of his throat opening and the saliva rushing down his gorge. The clock on the mantel ticked less and less frequently.

"I found something in my mother's house," he said, then involuntarily made a guttural moan of dread. A hand covered his own in its resting place on Lucius' bare knee.

"It's all right," said Lucius quickly. His other hand tugged Severus around so they were facing each other, and held onto him. "Don't worry, my love. I know."

Snape stared dumbly into the familiar grey eyes, full of understanding.

"You_know?!_" he lost his carefully cultivated speech under the duress of the moment, so it came out in the proper Yorkshire accent he'd spent so long trying to get rid of. Malfoy either didn't notice or didn't mind and just squeezed harder.

"Yes. I found out this afternoon."

"Oh. And you don't…you aren't…you're not revolted…"

"Why on earth should I be? It's not your fault, Severus. None of this was any of your doing and I don't mind a bit!"

Snape reeled back slightly in shock.

"So, you don't want us to stop…_us?_"

"Merlin, no! What sort of person do you think I am?! I've changed, Severus! I'm not who I used to be! You, however, are still the same person you always were and I still love you, no matter what your parentage. Besides, it's not like you actually have any of…_his_ DNA now, do you? It all got replaced with Tobias Snape's when your mother took the potion."

"Yes, I suppose so, but…" 

"So there's no problem, is there?"

"Um…"

"Good," declared Lucius, becoming predatory. "Now, kiss me again!"

…….

"Don't you find it amusing?" asked Hermione, sipping cautiously at her Weasley Whoosh-tastic Summer Fruit Punch (recipe secret since 1974). Narcissa placed a bare foot on the floor and pushed, setting the swinging chair rocking, then tucked her feet underneath her once more.

"What's amusing?"

"Men," replied Hermione, looking across the garden to where the Weasley males - plus Harry and Neville - were clustered together in deep conversation, their serious expressions at odds with the lazy early evening sunshine.

"Hilarious," agreed Narcissa. "Anything about them in particular?"

"I mean, every one that I've known tries to avoid anything resembling domestic tasks, yet the first sign of a barbecue and suddenly cooking sausages is the most important thing in the world," she leaned back and enjoyed the soothing motion for a moment. "It's because it's outdoors, I suppose. Makes it seem exciting."

"Mmm," Narcissa watched as Ron barked orders relating to marinades and sauces as though directing a battle.

"And we need more bangers! Now!" He was heard to command.

"Ron's a nice lad," Narcissa watched Hermione watching him and decided to try a little interference. "Was he really so terrible at tidying spells?"

Hermione sighed and drained her glass.

"It's more than that. We've tried to make a go of it three times now and I think that's enough to convince anyone. I do love him, but despite everything he's still such a child. Within a month of getting back together he's treating me like his mother again - using my flat like a hotel, never telling me when he wants to see me or when he's going out with his mates, not even giving a thought to putting his dirty cup in the sink, let alone washing it up. I end up yelling because it just doesn't occur to him that I might like to have a nice home to come back to after working my socks off for the Griminals," the younger woman frowned and slouched down in the swing, weighed down by the topic. "I don't mind looking after him a bit, but I'm always so busy I don't want to spend my precious free time cleaning. I mean, we've talked about it. He says he'll change, but he doesn't and I end up exasperated and resenting him, and he calls me a nag."

Narcissa took a long gulp of punch to stop herself from voicing the only sensible solution. Any of the house-elves in Dunscrubbin would leap at the chance of looking after a nice young couple like Ron and Hermione, but Narcissa knew that the tantrum such a suggestion would provoke would not be a pleasant addition to the evening's entertainment.

"Give him time," she said instead. "I know you lot feel ancient because of all the things you've been through, but try to remember you're still very young…"

The barbecue exploded before there was a chance to impart more wisdom.

The two witches were on their feet and racing towards the smoke before they registered the laughter.

"TWINS!" shouted Arthur, struggling up from the flowerbed where he had landed.

"Fred, you complete git!" giggled Harry, on his hands and knees, searching for his glasses.

"You pair of …" Ron, his face black with charcoal and his Kiss the Cook apron in tatters, had a coughing fit before a suitable description of his brothers could present itself.

"Mate, you did ask for _bangers,_" crowed George.

"And bangers you got!" added Fred.

"Spectacular Sausages! They're our newest prank, perfect for livening up those quiet summer evenings!"

"You…!" Ron stalked towards Fred, growling and pulling out his wand, when there was a small crunch on the lawn below. "Uh-oh," he said quietly.

"Ron!" exclaimed Harry in horror.

Hermione heaved a tremendous sigh, then encanted in a flat voice, "_Oculus reparo._ Again."

"Um, is everything all right?" asked a nervous voice behind them. Narcissa turned to see Draco shuffling uncertainly, a bottle of wine in his hand and an expression on his face which suggested that he wasn't at all sure he was where he wanted to be.

The evening progressed more civilly after that, with the sunset turning the garden of the Burrow a warm orangey-pink. The Weasleys and their guests sat in small groups, chatting and laughing, amply supplied with drinks from the Never-Out punchbowl which had been a wedding present at Arthur's first marriage.

Draco was polite, speaking when spoken to, or asking about Ginny's progress at the Quodpot training centre in Colorado. Narcissa watched as covertly as she could, her heart aching to understand the man her son had grown up into. Part of her knew that she should be grateful that he had survived the war at all, that he had his health and a promising career as a Healer ahead of him. But he was so quiet now! So serious! There was never even a hint of girlfriends, or any hobbies except for occasionally being kidnapped by his old school friends and dragged off to their rock concerts around the world. Perhaps he had sordid backstage escapades with female Griminals fans - or male ones, considering his father's preferences. She hoped he was having fun sometimes. His interest in Ginny had pleased her for a few weeks, until she realised that he was enthused by her profession rather than her person.

"Her shoulder's fine now, it's her overall fitness which is still causing concerns," explained Bill. "Because she was in St Mungo's for so long after the battle, her muscletone got really poor. All the teams she tried out for said the same thing - she's got loads of talent but her stamina's not going to last a full game."

"Is America the best place for her though? Quodpot's completely different from Quidditch. Will she learn the wrong moves over there?" Draco reached for a sausage, then stopped and withdrew his hand from the plate suspiciously.

"She's not really doing much game-training, apparently," said Harry. "The centre where she's staying specialises in getting players fit to fly at their peak if they've been out for a while due to injury, or childbirth or whatever. When she's back in shape, the Harpies have offered to let her train with them for a few months then try out again."

"They could use some new talent, their last season was pretty pathetic!" Draco smirked.

"I know!" exclaimed Harry. "They were so bad they even got beaten by Chudley…oh, sorry Ron…"

Narcissa stopped spying on her son and wandered away, pleased that at least he got on with her stepsons, if they all kept to their best behaviour and didn't spend too long in the same place.

Having a moment to herself, Narcissa recalled the conversation she'd had with Kreacher and grew rather sombre. The garden was full of Weasleys - could it really be possible that there was another, secret Weasley who had been hidden under everyone's noses for all these years? Had Eileen Snape been romantically involved with the jovial Septimus, then panicked at the thought of her baby emerging with vivid red hair? Though her muggle husband may not have realised the significance of the child's appearance, it sounded as though the wizarding world would certainly have raised its eyebrows, if Kreacher was right and the two married people had made no secret of their friendship. Although, if she had indeed taken the dangerous step of brewing Legitimising Potion to cover her tracks, it was odd that she should have named the baby Severus, so closely linked in history to the name Septimus. Narcissa wished she could figure out what on earth the woman had been up to, although there was little chance of ever really knowing the truth, with Eileen being not only long-dead, but also potentially as cunning and devious as her offspring.

Arms wrapped around her waist and Arthur's pot belly squished against her back before she could worry any more.

"Hello, pumpkin," he murmured in her ear. "Are you having a nice time?"

"Lovely, thank you, huggle-bear," she turned and kissed him on the chin.

"I bet you're glad Draco managed to get here," he said. "I hope he knows that he's welcome at any time."

"He's very busy," she defended him a bit too sharply, then softened. "But yes, he does know that. And we're both grateful for it."

They enjoyed a cuddle for a moment, before Narcissa's curiosity got the better of her again.

"There are still lots of things I should like to know about your family, Artie. Some traditions are like those of other pure-blooded families, others are completely different and a bit mysterious to me," she began.

"Oh dear, well I confess I never took much interest in the posh dynasties and their private laws, so I'm not sure I can tell you how we measure up," he sounded apologetic. "What would you like to know?"

"Oh, nothing specific. On jolly occasions like this I can't help drawing comparisons with the Black family," it was rather easy, with the punch and the indolent atmosphere, to affect a tone of utter nonchalance. "Did you know, for example, that we had a special fund set aside in order to discreetly provide for any Blacks sired illegitimately? On the condition that they and their mothers never told anyone."

"Gosh, how practical!" laughed Arthur. "I can't see any of my forbears being so organised!"

"The Malfoys had a different approach," she continued chattily. "I couldn't believe it when I found out."

"What was that? Denial?"

"Infanticide."

"What!?" Arthur pulled away from her in horror. "But that's…that's just…_barbaric!_"

"I think they'd had some problems with blackmail in the seventeenth century, so they made a decision to silence any potential claimants on the fortune or harbingers of disgrace at birth. Dreadful, isn't it?" She sighed absently, grateful that at least Lucius had never been responsible for that sort of thing, having limited his adultery to males only. Draco may have lost his inheritance and his home, but at least he was also free of the terrible burden of having to live up to a thousand years of dubious family values.

Arthur was looking rather pale.

"Barbaric," he muttered again, shaking his head. "Innocent babies…" She smiled warmly and took his hand.

"It's all in the past now," she assured him. "Anyhow, I think it's sad that these families expected their menfolk to be unfaithful to their wives. I'm sure the Weasleys never had to think about these things, with marrying for love and generally putting family life before politics. I shouldn't think it happened to them!"

He was silent for a while, watching his sons setting up the old gramophone with a view to some drunken dancing, and Narcissa thought her fishing expedition had failed entirely. She ought not to have mentioned the Malfoy brutality. It seemed that even after all the terrible things Arthur had seen happen during the wars, he could still be upset by needless cruelty. Just when she had been about to pull him over to the improvised patio-dancefloor to cheer him up, he rubbed at his bald head and said quietly.

"I have heard one or two snippets about my father, actually."

Narcissa was careful to make no reaction.

"Really?"

"I think the expression is a 'ladies' man'," he rolled his eyes. "I only knew him when he was an invalid, but here and there I've heard some fragments or rumours, seen a smirk which wasn't quite done behind my back, all suggesting that before the attack, he had been up to no good."

"Gracious, how unfortunate for you," she gazed at him with understanding.

"Oh, I don't mind. He was a great dad to me and my sisters!" He smiled sadly. "My mother was a Black, you know. I can't imagine she would have let him get away with it for long."

"Ah, yes, Cedrella Black! She was erased from the family records for consorting with," she smirked flirtatiously, "…your kind! Shameful! What would my ancestors say if they could see us now!"

"Actually, I don't believe that Mum's family objected purely because she married a Weasley," his ears flushed pink and Narcissa watched his expression morph into the one he used when he was embarrassed by something, but really more embarrassed about being embarrassed about it. Tampons, for example. "I think it was because my sister Daisy arrived so soon after their wedding."

"Ohhh," Narcissa leaned forward, enthralled. Even in her most furious rants, Aunt Walburga had never mentioned _that_. "How soon?"

"Six weeks," he chuckled shyly. "There aren't any wedding photos, but she must have been quite large."

The opening bars of the 1970s disco classic "Zoom like a broom" chimed out across the garden and the boys hollered until Arthur got up to join them for some dancing. Narcissa was in equal parts pleased and dismayed with her day's work. It sounded as though Septimus had been a rather naughty boy in his youth - earning himself a reputation by getting Cedrella pregnant then taking a very long time to do the decent thing by her, then committing enough misdeeds to get tongues wagging, even in the presence of his son! Not forgetting Kreacher's opinion, about Septimus and Eileen appearing in public together more often than was tasteful.

There would have been more than ten years between them, but Septimus, handsome in an outdoorsy, freckled sort of way and probably as fun and charming as the rest of his family seemed to have been throughout history, would still have been only in his thirties. It would not have been the first time a younger girl had had her head turned by an older man.

Certainly, it seemed that there was a good possibility the unlikely pair had ended up having an affair. It would be highly ironic if Severus, always a solitary and withdrawn young man, was secretly a member of the largest, liveliest and most sociable clan in wizarding Britain.

She looked around her at the happy scene. Her new family, enjoying themselves despite all the pain they'd suffered in losing their mother, brother and almost losing their only sister; having witnessed countless acts of violence as they risked their lives to fight for what they believed in. Her husband, who looked far older than his years after losing a beloved wife and son, now having reached the stage where he was able to smile through the frown lines etched into his face. Hopefully, her own influence as well as that of time had helped in some way to heal the damaged people around her.

Dare she risk that fragile contentment now by pulling skeletons out of the Burrow's cupboard?

…….


	11. Chapter 11

Author's note: As the recap was so popular last chapter, I've decided to do another!

Eileen is the embryonic Order of the Phoenix's newest spy. Although there are no open hostilities yet, Dumbledore is concerned about the way the wind is blowing. Eileen is really unsure about what is going on, but she is desperate to help fight some of the destructive prejudices she witnessed at school and which indirectly led her to the drastic step of marrying a muggle she hardly knew.

Neither Severus, Lucius or Narcissa is keen to discuss what they think they discovered about Snape's parentage. After taking his first ever weekend off since becoming head of the MLE, supposedly suffering from suspected (but actually not,) Dragon Pox, Severus has to go back to work.

1958

"Mr Weasley, may I ask for some advice? I'm not certain where to begin and they assure me you are full of advice." Eileen smoothed her hair back from her face and tucked it behind her left ear, trying to appear mature and professional although she hadn't a clue about what she was doing.

"It's Septimus, sweetheart," he gave her a long, lazy smile which made her flush and untuck her hair again to cover her consternation. It swung in front of her face and he frowned good-naturedly. "No need to hide from Sep, sweetheart. You just tell me what the matter is and I'll make it all better."

They called Septimus Weasley a 'charmer', a 'ladies' man', a 'bit of a lad'. Perhaps he was. She had never imagined that any of those epithets would affect her dealings with him, a plain girl who had not yet shaken off the awkwardness and mood swings of her adolescence. Men never looked at her in the way he was doing now, so openly and indolently, as though he were savouring what he saw. It made her feel partly like a juicy steak lying on a dinner plate and partly - incredibly - like some kind of sex goddess.

Pushing down the treacherous, possibly hormone-driven part of her which was rather pleased to have a dreadfully handsome connoisseur of the feminine aesthetic being so attentive, she reminded herself that she was here for a reason wholly unconnected with that sort of behaviour. He knew perfectly well that they were both married to other people and that she was a good deal younger than him, yet he had the gall to be sitting in front of her, obviously deciding whether or not she was worth trying to woo!

Eileen decided he was not going to get away with it.

"How is your wife?" she asked in honeyed tones. His hand had been creeping towards her knee, she suspected, but it stopped in mid-air and returned to the table. Pleased with herself, she raised her chin and pushed further. "And your little boy? Alfred, is it?"

"Arthur," he said, smiling with just his mouth and eyes this time, instead of his entire body. "He's a bonny lad and no mistake. The girls are growing up fast too."

"How lucky you are to have such a pleasant family," she sat up straight and gave him a look suggesting that she knew his game and she wasn't having any of it. Septimus inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement.

"Can't blame a chap for trying," he muttered, giving her the ghost of a wink. In spite of her prim stance, Eileen laughed and Septimus joined in to laugh at himself too. "Well then, if you are so dismissive of my charms, Mrs Snape, I suppose we'd better talk seriously. What can I do for you, sweetheart?"

Secretly delighted at having scored some kind of victory, she cleared her throat.

"I'm supposed to dig dirt on the Malfoys - the most secretive family in the country. I haven't the least idea how. In fact, I can't help thinking this is some manner of test and if I fail it, I've finished with Dumbledore's Order before I've even begun." It felt strange to be discussing this top secret information with someone else, after all the drilling and promising she had done with Albus and Moody. They had encouraged her to seek Weasley's advice at any time she needed it though, as he seemed to have full clearance on everything that was going on. "I want to be useful, but since I'm ostracised from so much of pure-blood society since I married…"

"I think the old man is being less obnoxious than you think, Eileen," Septimus said slowly. "I agree he's set you a poser, but it is possible. It's nothing to do with my dearest in-laws, the Blacks, for example."

"Thank Merlin. They'd curse me as soon as look at me!" She laughed again and tucked her hair back behind her ear when it broke free.

"Precisely. Malfoy, however, now that's something different," he rubbed his knuckles on his short dark red beard as he ruminated.

"I know his wife is ill," she began.

"It's a residual curse, actually. Her mother did a lot of work against Grindelwald and he incanted an evil curse on her future firstborn child. When Lucretia was born, the family countered it with potions as best they could, but it seems that it's no longer possible to keep her alive."

"She has been cursed since before her birth and yet the Malfoys still permitted her to marry Abraxas?" Eileen's mouth fell open in surprise.

"Abraxas is not a man to be trifled with," Septimus shrugged. "He fell in love with her and that was that. Now she's dying…"

"Gosh, he loved her enough to risk his whole dynasty," she blinked. It didn't sound like very Malfoy-ish behaviour. Certainly no Prince would have dared do such a thing. Until now, of course. Perhaps she and Abraxas were not so different after all.

"Not really," sighed Weasley. "She's given him a son, Lucius, although it nearly killed her at the time, so she's performed her duty as a pure-blood wife. I imagine once she dies he will marry again and get some more. In the meantime, Abraxas is distraught."

Eileen thought of the boy she remembered from school. Tall, confident, overbearing; he had been a star Quidditch player and had ruled every aspect of Slytherin study and play so that the cup had been theirs again and again, despite Dumbledore's pronounced preference for the other houses. It was impossible to imagine him showing any of the tender emotions. She raised a sceptical eyebrow at Septimus.

"Now, sweetheart, don't be dunderheaded," he wagged a finger at her. "He won't snivel in the middle of Diagon Alley or beat his chest in the Ministry atrium, but that doesn't mean he won't be in an agony of grief."

She digested this and supposed there may have been an element of truth in it. To marry a cursebound witch when one had the pick of pure-blooded society, not just in Britain but worldwide, showed that Abraxas must have hidden depths.

"So, Sep. My mission is to spy on, follow around and generally take advantage of a man who knows he is about to be widowed," she flared her nostrils with distaste.

Septimus looked her up and down and gave grin of approval which set Eileen's unusually excitable hormones fizzing again, having the audacity to ignore her previous rational decision about disdaining lecherous, older, married men.

"Precisely, sweetheart," he drawled.

…….

2007

"Breakfast briefing session, Severus! Are you coming?"

Lucius was aware of a loud and unwelcome noise, making the warm, angular body fitted perfectly against his own stir and abandon him. He made an incoherent sound of protest and grabbed at the lovely thing, wrapping it around with his arms and legs to prevent it from escaping its rightful place in his bed.

"Mmph, gettoff," growled Snape, trying to wriggle free but only succeeding in tightening his lover's grip.

"Problems?" trilled Shacklebolt's voice, from the general direction of the fireplace. "If you need more…ah…sleep I can come back later."

"No, I do not. Malfoy! Behave yourself!" The steely voice forced Lucius' eyes open, just a fraction, but enough to recognise a stone-melting glare. "The Minister of Magic requests my presence. You will stop this nonsense and unhand me immediately."

"No," croaked Lucius petulantly.

"What on earth is the matter with you?" exclaimed Severus in disbelief.

"Severus, it's all right. If there's something you need to do, you can join us in a few minutes," it was Kingsley's 'understanding' tone of voice, which he used to remind people that he was not only a competent magical world leader, but also the caring father of a young and numerous family. It made him very popular with listeners of the WWN.

He disappeared and Lucius relaxed his hold, allowing Snape to stand sharply and begin dressing with stiff, irritated movements. Now that he was more awake, annoying his lover in front of the boss seemed much less hilarious. He ran his hands through his hair and let it flop into his face to avoid the glare he was getting.

"Do you wish me to lose my job?" asked Severus calmly.

"No, I…" he began.

"Do you wish me to appear ridiculous and incapable in front of the Minister?"

"Not at…"

"Do you wish to strengthen any lingering prejudice about homosexual men being frivolous, oversexed and generally unfit for serious employment?"

"Severus," Lucius whined. "I'm sorry. I was half asleep and I didn't want you to go. I enjoyed this weekend with no interruptions and no demands from your job and I wanted you to stay here with me. Still want you to, in fact. Are you angry with me? For that?"

Snape paused as he buttoned his trousers and sighed, looking at Lucius, who was making his eyes large and as innocent as a former Death Eater and deservéd Azkaban detainee could manage. There was nothing he wanted more than to climb back into their bed and kiss the stubbly jaw or bury his nose in that long, fading hair until the scent of Lucius drove him wild. Malfoy, being Malfoy, of course, knew this too and flashed him a provocative smirk stretching sensually until the sheet fell away to reveal a tantalising glimpse of nipple. Fortunately, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had something of an overdeveloped sense of duty.

"Enough," Severus chided gently. "I should much rather stay here, but there is work to be done. I dread to imagine what kind of mess those incompetents have made in the two days I've been away."

Recognising defeat, Lucius sighed and pulled the sheet back up to his chin.

"If you're going to go and run the country, I suppose I ought to try and source some suitably hideous fabrics for McGonagall's kitchen curtains," he frowned.

Snape selected a jacket from the wardrobe and buttoned it up, smiling.

"Do try not to have too much fun without me," he teased.

"Sod off," said Lucius. And Severus did.

The bedside clock was showing five minutes to six, so Lucius rolled over and went back to sleep, sorry to be without Severus, but pleased to have an undemanding job. Then he remembered the cantankerous and stylistically-challenged Minerva McGonagall and mentally corrected that to a _very marginally less_ demanding job.

Three hours later, he glanced idly through the Daily Prophet as he sat at the dining table, enjoying a pot of fresh coffee and a bowl of the fruit salad he hoped one day would somehow become as desirable as the eggs benedict or buttered kippers he had always loved in the past. Then, however, his youth and the physically demanding activities of poncing around the Ministry as though he owned the place, poncing around Malfoy Manor because he did actually own the place and pursuing wily mudbloods through forest and glen during night time raids meant that he could eat whatever he chose. Now he was becoming _chunky,_ and _stocky,_ and other horrendous adjectives which ought never to apply to the former heartthrob and three times winner of Witch Weekly's annual Most Eligible Bachelor award. Severus claimed not to notice the roll of fat now nestling above the waistband of his trousers, and if pressed to observe it, would claim that it was of no significance.

Still, Lucius was bothered by it. He knew that younger and more succulent men would be drawn to his boyfriend's power and lingering aura of alluring darkness. There was nothing he could legally do to stop himself from growing old, but he owed it to his uncertain future not to grow fat. It was not as though he had the reassurance of a ring on his finger, even, and with Severus being the only person standing between him and a return to Azkaban, there was more at stake than a simple broken heart.

He began thinking about his discovery of Severus' true parentage once more. It was fortunate that he had not been questioned about his investigations. Laying his paper down, he realised that he had been offered no information about anyone else's discoveries either. He dashed off a note to Narcissa, asking for news. Hopefully, she had failed to discover anything and could be put off any further explorations before she found out about Hagrid. Understandably, Severus wanted to brush the embarrassing truth under the carpet and would prefer as few people as possible to know.

Lucius wondered exactly what he had found at Spinner's End the previous day. Severus would not want to discuss it. If pressed, he might admit to a tight-lipped "letter," perhaps, but Lucius decided that he needed to know more. He himself had only the vaguest picture in his head of Eileen and Hagrid forming a bond on the shores of the lake, finding comfort in each other as most of the witches and wizards they knew reviled them for being different. Or in Eileen's case, they would have hated her, had she let them know what she really thought.

Had she married another man, imagining that a mere groundskeeper's assistant would not be able to provide for her? No, that wasn't it. Tobias Snape had been barely able to provide for her! For some reason, she had grown apart from Hagrid, fallen for Tobias, married him then come back to Hagrid, probably realising that he was kinder and more loving and caring than her ill-tempered husband. Could it have simply been down to Hagrid's monstrous size? Having a lover more than twice as big as you could not be an attractive prospect, no matter how cuddly he was. Which left Lucius with a not entirely welcome thought.

How had Eileen and Hagrid actually managed to…well…conceive Severus? Presumably, Hagrid was a half-giant _all over_. For a second, Lucius visualised the likely size of his tackle and shifted uneasily in his chair. Surely that was too big? Certain gentlemen he had known in the old days had maintained that there was no such thing as too big, but Lucius decided he had just discovered that he disagreed with them.

"Master Malfoy? Is the fruit sour?" asked Peggy, suddenly appearing at his elbow.

"Sorry?" he was startled out of his unappealing thoughts.

"Excuse me, master. The expression on your face suggested that you had found something amiss with your breakfast. Is the pineapple pieces, sir? Too sharp?"

"Oh. No, Peggy. Nothing to do with the pineapple," he brought his attention back to the fruit salad, away from more disturbing matters. The elf refilled his cup with coffee.

"Then may I get you something else, master? Some muesli or yoghurt?"

"No, this will be sufficient. Oh, but…" he paused as something occurred to him. It would be a complete breach of trust. A despicable act of espionage against the man he loved. It was wholly improper and ought not to be even considered by anyone other than a complete cad. Lucius took a long sip of coffee and decided that he had probably always been a bit of a cad. "Peggy, did Severus bring anything back from Scoursby yesterday, do you know?"

Peggy narrowed her eyes.

He smirked at her and gave a sly wink, hoping that her natural preference for him, a disdainful pure-blooded wizard who knew that one ought never to thank house-elves, over her true master, a low-born half-breed…blood! half-_blood! _Oh, Merlin! He had to be careful…who would wash his own socks given the opportunity, might be to his advantage.

"There were no bags or boxes," she looked straight ahead, not at him as she violated every elvish code. "But there may have been something in the pocket of his cloak."

"Damn!" Lucius grimaced. "He's wearing it now." Peggy cleared her throat. "Yes?" he prompted.

"Forgive me for contradicting you, master. But Master Snape is wearing another of his billowy black cloaks today."

Lucius opened the wardrobe door with a great deal of curiosity and very little guilt.

The second pocket he checked had something very odd in it. Lucius frowned as he pulled out a piece of thin metal shaped like a star, with "Sheriff" emblazoned on it. Sheriffs were what the muggles used to call their local rulers in medieval times, he remembered from family history lessons. Lady Marion De Malfoy had caused a serious muggle-wizard diplomatic incident in the twelfth century for attacking one with a dark jinx involving a spoon or something. However, this item with its even, modern lettering looked far too new to have belonged to genuine sheriff, not to mention too cheap for a piece of official government regalia.

How on earth it related to Severus, Eileen, Hagrid or Spinner's End, Lucius could not imagine.

The next item he found was a black and white picture. He marvelled for a second at the great effort of discipline which must have been required to keep so many small children standing so still, until he remembered that muggle photographs could not move, no matter how lively the subjects had been when the image had been captured. Lucius scrutinised the strangely-dressed kids, looking for clues. On the back, someone had written "Scoursby Infants School Nativity Play, Christmas '65."

Grinning, he turned the picture over again and took a closer look at the little faces. How was it possible that he had missed the surly boy on the far right, with his very familiar big nose and dark eyes? A little glow of warmth filled Lucius' chest as he stared at his beloved Severus, not quite six years old but already clearly brimming with personality.

It was clear that he was no larger than his contemporaries and bore no particular resemblance to Hagrid, even so soon after Eileen had taken the potion to alter his genes.

Potion!

Lucius almost smacked his forehead for being so dim-witted. Of course Hagrid's enormous size had been no problem to a ruthless brewer of suspect potions like Eileen Prince. He did not care to know exactly what she had done, but down the centuries, witches had devised potions or spells for dealing with just about every kind of issue relating to sex and marriage, not forgetting the damned Legitimising Potion which had started all of this mystery in the first place. There was bound to be something hidden in the back of a housekeeping manual somewhere to help ladies cope with husbands of unusual size, without having to seek medi-magical assistance afterwards. Old wives' tales, he remembered from discussions with boys in his dorm who had sisters, could be alarmingly thorough.

As he carefully replaced the odd badge and the photo in the pocket of Severus' cloak, his fingertips brushed against another object right at the bottom. He pulled out the Caboodle's box and stared at it for a few seconds, before his heart skipped a beat then began pounding like crazy.

A small square box. From the country's finest jewellers. Which Severus had kept hidden. It could mean only one thing.

Lucius felt his face flushing as giggle after nervous giggle bubbled out of his throat. With trembling hands he put the box back where he found it, knowing better than to look inside - he had done enough snooping and spoiled enough of Severus' surprise already. He staggered the few steps to the bed and collapsed backwards onto it, still shaking and chuckling with shock and delight.

"Master Malfoy?" Peggy appeared, looking concerned once more. "Are you unwell?"

"No," he beamed at her, wiping away a single tear of joy which had formed at the corner of his eye. "I have never felt better in my life!"

"But sir, you are shaking," she pointed out suspiciously.

"With excitement," he explained, trying to regain control of himself, even if he was only in the presence of a house-elf.

"I shall fire-call Master Snape," she stated determinedly.

"No!" he sat up and grabbed her bony shoulder. "No, you mustn't. I'm fine, really. I've just had the most wonderful surprise and you can't tell Severus!"

She folded her arms across her chest and glared.

"What surprise?" she huffed.

Lucius bit his lip. He really ought not to tell anyone, especially not an elf who was bound to the one person who must not know what he had discovered, but he felt so exhilarated there could be real danger of him bursting if he didn't share the amazing secret with someone.

"Peggy, listen," he leaned forward very seriously, so he was only inches away from the little creature. "If you tell Severus it will spoil everything, you CAN'T breathe a word about it to him. It's for all our sakes that you don't even hint to him about it." She raised a sceptical eyebrow.

"Peggy, I just found a Caboodle's box containing an engagement ring," he cleared his throat, unable to stop the grin spreading back across his face. "Severus is going to ask me to marry him!"

…….


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: It's all JK Rowling's, not mine. Except for the bit which is Daphne du Maurier's. (Nightie-points for spotting that!)

Recap:

2007 - It's Monday morning and Snape has gone back to work after having the weekend off, at first suspended while they investigated the problem with his DNA, then as a break for him to recover from the shock and begin investigations.

2007 - Lucius got carried away and thought the jewellery box containing Eileen's necklace, apparently a present from Abraxas Malfoy, contained an engagement ring from Severus to him.

1958 - Dumbledore suspects that the clever and secretive Abraxas may be up to no good. He also suspects that Abraxas' school chum Tom Riddle may be involved. He has asked Eileen to use her remaining pure-blood contacts to dig the dirt.

1958 - Abraxas' wife, Lucius' mother, has been sickly all her life thanks to a nefarious "firstborn child" curse placed on her parents by Grindelwald before her birth. Now, however, the strengthening potions have stopped working and she's fading fast.

…….

2007

The backlog could have been worse. As he had imagined, a great many errors had been made in the two and a half days he had spent completely alienated from the job, setting the department back on several key projects. As far as he could tell, though, nothing too horrific had occurred as a result of his absence. Yet.

It was 9:30pm and Severus decided that he'd been in his office for long enough - particularly given that he was supposed to be recovering from an unspecified illness during his suspension after that wretched DNA test unleashed his latest round of worries and insecurity.

Leaving instructions for the staff to return to traditional procedure and contact him immediately, regardless of the hour in case of serious developments, he headed for home.

Arthur Weasley was in the lift when it arrived, looking smart but uncomfortable in a muggle suit and bow tie. He nodded to Snape, who favoured him with the non-hostile sneer he reserved for those whose presence he could tolerate.

"I am assailed by a sudden urge to wolf-whistle," he commented dryly. One of the few others in the lift who had been working late tittered. Arthur glanced down at himself, making the light reflect off his bald head.

"A bit much for the office," he smiled. "But just the ticket for the opera, I've discovered!"

"I had no idea you were a fan," Snape didn't bother to conceal his surprise, not at a man as earthy and uncomplicated as Arthur Weasley being so interested in opera that he would dress up as a muggle to go and see it, but at the idea of anyone in their right mind deriving pleasure from such nonsense. All that howling and prancing left him quite cold. At least the din that the teenagers in Spinner's End had blared from their radios in the 1960s had had a beat one could dance to, if one were inclined towards such rituals. Even the young man previously known as Gregory Goyle and his leather-clad band-mates could occasionally make the foot tap of its own volition.

"I'm learning," Arthur shrugged pleasantly. "It's jolly good fun once you get into it. Narcissa absolutely loves the whole experience. She used to go once a month before…before the war, now we get tickets for a treat occasionally and her face just lights up the moment we arrive in Covent Garden. It's beautiful to see." Looking faintly sheepish, he adjusted his tie self-consciously. "She used to have such a fancy lifestyle and do the smart things she enjoyed every day. We live well enough now, and she never makes a word of complaint, but I like her to have a bit of glamour. I don't want her pining for the old days."

The streak of jealousy, which Severus managed to keep buried most of the time, made itself known at the mention of the Old Days.

In the Old Days, Mrs Weasley the Second had been married to his precious Lucius, so the idea of either of the former Malfoy couple hankering for their past unsettled him. Logically, he knew that the divorcés would never reconcile, no matter how civilised their friendship became, but loathe as he was to admit it, Severus also knew that his stronger emotions rarely allowed Logic any input.

So he worried about Lucius.

Was Lucius also in need of some approximation of the fine life he had lost? Severus had a moment of panic as he recalled the passive compliance with which the ex-_bon viveur_ agreed to his suggestions of steak and kidney pies and going for walks in the park. A man as practised in the art of deception as Lucius Malfoy could easily be concealing secret longings for the lifestyle which he had been born to lead, out of some ill-founded fear of displeasing his protector. He may well have been dreaming of foie gras and Wagner all the time that Severus thought he was content.

The idea of Lucius being secretly unhappy was extremely upsetting. Trust the wretched Weasley clan to show up his own failings in the emotional indulgence stakes.

The Weasley in question misread his expression of dismay

"Opera's not as bad as people think, you know," he said, seriously. "They have an ingenious little screen above the stage where they translate all the words, so you always know what they're singing about."

"Did Lucius go with Narcissa in the old days?" Snape asked abruptly, utterly uninterested in cunning ways the UK's arts mafia tried to overcome its linguistic issues. Perhaps he ought to follow Arthur's lead and ask Cho to source him some tickets. On a night when Narcissa wasn't going, naturally. Lucius would be sure to be enraptured and stop believing his lover to be a pie-eating ignoramus with no cultural refinement and no consideration for his happiness. Severus could take a shot of pepper-up potion beforehand to stop himself falling asleep and snoring in the quiet bits.

"No," replied Arthur, aborting the ingenious plan with a single word. "He couldn't stand it, apparently. She used to go with the Fudges. Ah," the lift doors opened with a ping. "This is me. Good night, Severus."

Snape arrived home to find Lucius waiting for him with a beaming smile and a kiss and cuddle.

"How was your first day back? Have the imbeciles ruined years of painstaking work without you being there to crack the whip?"

He opened his mouth to begin a tirade about the incompetence of the MLE and all who were part of it, then realised that he had done so practically every night since Lucius had moved in with him. The first twenty or so minutes of their few hours together usually consisted of Severus letting off steam by growling indiscriminately, while Lucius listened and made sympathetic noises at what must have been a very tedious monologue.

A good proportion of wizarding society believed Malfoy to be an evil, twisted sadist, who fully deserved the eight years he served in prison and more besides. They were wrong, Severus decided. Lucius was clearly some kind of saint.

"Everything's fine," he said, because minor irritations aside, it was. He held Lucius closer. "And how are you, love?"

Lucius pulled back and blinked in surprise at the break in their routine. Severus decided he liked the bewilderment on his face and decided to make an effort to go against his meticulous nature and be more unpredictable in future.

"Fine," Lucius found his voice and smiled again. "Fine, thanks."

"What did you do today?" Snape asked. Lucius started slightly, then grinned and looked away, somewhat furtively.

"Oh, nothing. You know, same old stuff," he kissed him again. "Are you hungry? There's cottage pie for dinner."

The mention of cottage pie made Snape scowl. Here was yet another meal of the hearty, plain kind Snape preferred, but which Lucius probably found basic and beneath his educated palate. It seemed scandalous, suddenly, that Severus was the one wizard out of millions to have the good fortune to claim this fascinating, alluring and dangerous creature as his own, yet he had failed to take proper care of him. Looking at the intelligence and dignity in his lover's face, the beautiful bone structure and all the other evidence of the sheer gorgeousness of him, Snape realised that Lucius deserved so much better than this. It was like keeping a unicorn in a coal-cellar.

"What's wrong?" asked Lucius, sharp grey eyes trying to read the conflicting nuances of expression crossing the other's face. Severus made a decision.

"Never mind about the cottage pie," he said smoothly. "Let's go out."

Lucius blinked again, then asked with restrained delight:

"Out? Out to a restaurant?" Snape nodded and Lucius beamed. "Have you made a reservation?"

"Naturally," lied Snape. Lucius kissed him enthusiastically.

"Where at?"

"It's a surprise," he said, watching Lucius' eyes glitter with a quite unprecedented amount of enthusiasm. "Why don't you get changed into something muggle-friendly?"

As Lucius scampered - there could be no other way to describe his excitable trot - off to the bedroom, Snape dashed back to the fireplace, hoping that Cho was still in the office. He was in luck. She had her cloak on ready to leave, but with a sigh agreed to illegally use magic to get them a last minute table at the highly celebrated and exorbitantly expensive muggle French restaurant which Scrimgeour had always used to try and impress important people. He hoped it would live up to his lover's high standards. Judging by his earlier delight, he was expecting great things that evening.

…

Luicus closed the bedroom door behind him and took some deep breaths to try and contain his joy. This was it! Severus never ever went out to eat after coming home from work - he would only venture into restaurants if forced by someone else's special occasion. Obviously, tonight was a special occasion.

Severus was going to propose over dinner!

This was going to be an amazing moment, loaded with significance. Lucius had thought that no one would want to associate with him since his fall from grace, yet here was the wonderful Severus Snape, good and loyal and willing to risk damaging his very powerful government position, for a worthless ex-convict. Wen they married Lucius would not only be bonding to the man he loved, he would also be reclaiming some of his former standing in society. In the two years since the war ended and he left Azkaban, some people were willing to let bygones be bygones, even to the extent of allowing him full access to their homes so he could give them the very latest look in interior design. However, there were still plenty - Severus' gigantic biological father, to name but one - who loathed the sight of him. Being married to the head of Magical Law Enforcement would give him some more security, a reason to hold his head high once more.

But most important of all, it meant that Severus truly loved him, despite the younger man's sulks and his undemonstrative demeanour, despite the fact that his job took so much out of him their sex life was often smothered by the weight of more important matters, despite the recent discovery of his true identity. A lesser wizard would have been alarmed by such disruptions and may have distanced himself from his partner as he took time to adjust. Not Severus Snape. Severus was obviously determined to show that he would not be cowed by a little inhuman blood in his veins.

And neither would Lucius. He smiled, selfishly pleased for a moment at his own progress. Years ago, the idea of sleeping with a half-blood would have turned his stomach. Now, he was a modern, 21st century wizard, who could shrug off as unimportant the knowledge that his boyfriend was a half-breed, whose bloodline lead all the way to the mountains where the most violent and uncouth species regularly clubbed each other to death with oak trees. And while on the subject of the 21st century, he shook his head in disbelief at the changes in society in his own lifetime. Not only was it acceptable that he was openly living with another man, but they could also now legally enter into a civil partnership, seen by all but the most religious muggles as the equivalent of a marriage.

This evening would be one of the most momentous occasions in his life. He stopped smiling and stared at the wardrobe askance as a worrying thought struck him.

What on earth was he going to wear?!

…….

1958

Despite her ambiguous feelings towards Septimus Weasley, Eileen was grateful to him for this tip. There was no way she alone would have tracked down the mighty and unfathomable Abraxas Malfoy to this muggle children's playground in Devizes where, according to Septimus' sources, he often brought his small son to help him learn about the wider world.

When she had expressed admiration for Malfoy's broad-mindedness, Septimus had laughed.

"It's a lesson in snobbery, sweetheart, nothing more. He's showing little Lucifer how superior he is to all the muggle kids."

"Erm, it's Lucius, isn't it?" She had leaned back in her chair as the red-headed informer leaned towards her, too close as usual.

If Septimus had been right about the location, she had no way of either proving or disproving his theory about the lessons Abraxas was teaching his heir. As she lurked in a nearby clump of trees, not entirely trusting the disillusionment charm Moody had taught her, she could see that the two Malfoys were the only people in the playground. It had been raining on and off all day, sudden showers waited to drench anyone brave enough to venture out of doors. The swings, slides and the big roundabout were all wet and large brown puddles filled all the indents worn down by hundreds of tiny feet leaping on and off play equipment over the years. Even now the sky was grey with the threat of a downpour and every muggle family in the area had the sense to stay inside.

Abraxas, however, didn't seem to be paying attention to the weather or much else. He was sitting despondently on the bench, resting his elbows on his outstretched knees as he stared vacantly ahead. Eileen was glad that she could recognise his face, because nothing else about him resembled the strutting, arrogant prefect she remembered from Hogwarts. He was dressed in muggle Upper Class country sportswear - brown corduroy trousers with green wellington boots and a green waxed jacket, with an old tweed cap covering his luxuriant blond hair.

From where she stood, he looked a great deal older than his twenty-four years. She frowned. It seemed that it could be hard work being so rich and powerful, or was it simply grief for a beloved wife who could not keep one step ahead of death for much longer?

She turned from Abraxas, sombre as the weather, to his son. With sharp childish instinct, the three and a half year-old Lucius had deduced that his father would rather be brooding on his own than playing, so was cheerfully entertaining himself. He chattered nonsense to an imaginary friend, sang snippets of nursery rhymes with the words all mixed up or spun around with his arms out until he got dizzy and staggered, giggling at his own loss of co-ordination.

Abraxas was still in his melancholy trance when Lucius first trod in a puddle with his shiny yellow wellies. Lucius stopped chuckling to himself and stared at his feet with great concentration. Experimentally, he lifted up a rubber-clad foot and put it down again, making a very pleasing _plish._ He jumped up and landed with both feet and made an almighty _splash_ which sent muddy water flying out in all directions, including, Eileen noted, up his legs and onto the hem of his coat.

Cackling with glee, Lucius ran to another, bigger puddle and launched himself into the middle of it, making a small brown tidal wave as he landed. Then he hopped from one foot to another, splashing happily and chanting with delight at his new game. His father seemed oblivious to all the murky goings-on and Eileen was able to formulate a plan.

Edging out of the trees, she spotted the biggest puddle of them all. It was at the bottom of the slide, where the children's shoes gouged into the ground as they landed on milder days than this, and at an impressive four feet across, would be bound to appeal to the little blond mudlark. The spell she used was one she remembered from the gobstones rule book's list of forbidden tactics. In 1702, a player had used it to turn the ground into a bog each time the opposing team threw and when a fight had broken out over the tampering, three people had to be rescued from drowning. It was a mean and unpleasant trick to play on a little boy enjoying himself on a rainy day, but if she had to spy on his father for the Greater Good, she would need a way to befriend them both.

She made the monster puddle even muddier, stickier and deeper than it already was, then placed a Notice-me charm on it. Immediately, Lucius' head snapped round and his pale eyes widened as he beheld Puddle Heaven. He pounded over as fast as his little legs could carry him, wet wellies squelching and a determined expression fixed on his cherubic face.

He leaped. Eileen held her breath.

Lucius disappeared completely under the sludgy water for a second, then resurfaced, flailing and screaming in fright and utterly utterly filthy.

The sound finally broke Abraxas' reverie and he sprang from the bench with a yell. Making herself visible again, Eileen dashed forwards and reached Lucius before his father did, lifting the howling child out of the mud and holding him against her, trying to look concerned and heroic.

"Hush, darling! It's all right, it's all right," she crooned maternally as he squirmed and coughed in her arms.

"What in Merlin's name were you doing, Lucius?!" Abraxas seized the boy and held him up so they were face to face. Lucius continued wailing.

"Oh, it wasn't his fault, the poor little mite!" Eileen interceded, truthfully. "He just fell over and got a big shock!"

Abraxas started, noticing her for the first time.

"I, oh, er. Thank you," he put Lucius down, reached into his pocket to grab something long and thin, then stopped, looking up at her.

"I'm not a muggle," she smiled conspiratorially. "I'd get your wand out and dry him off before he catches cold, if I were you!"

Relaxing visibly, Abraxas did as she advised and Lucius began to sniff as his tantrum subsided.

"Is that better, darling?" gushed Eileen. He pouted up at her accusingly.

"No. There's mud in my boots and my chin hurts."

"Young man, that's no way to address a lady," admonished Abraxas, twinkling at Eileen. "Especially a nice lady who just saved you from drowning," he looked her up and down with concern. "_Especially_ when you've got her all dirty! Miss, I'm so sorry. Are your robes ruined?"

She looked down at the mud which the wriggling boy had smeared all over her as though noticing it for the first time.

"Oh dear. Never mind, I'm sure it will come off, Mr…er?"

"Malfoy. Abraxas Malfoy. This is my son, Lucius," he shook her hand. Lucius stuck his tongue out and received a gentle paternal cuff on the ear.

"Of course!" She feigned surprise. "I thought you looked familiar! You were a few years above me at school. Eileen Snape." She watched him closely for any sign of disdain.

None appeared. Instead, he invited her back home with them. She made a token protest.

"No no, I insist, Mrs Snape. I'm so grateful that you were able to help my son when I wasn't paying attention - who knows what might have happened had you not been there? The very least I can do is have the house-elves clean you up and then offer you afternoon tea."

"Weeell…" she looked down demurely, allowing him to persuade her.

"Splendid!" Abraxas announced. "We'll all go back to the Manor and have a nice chat!"

…

The Princes and the Malfoys had fallen out in spectacular fashion when Eileen was ten years old, but she remembered a few visits to the Manor before then. There had been the famous annual Christmas Eve drinks party, attended by the cream of wizarding society, who brayed and bragged in the ballroom, dining room and some of the drawing rooms, while their offspring ran wild adventures through the conservatory and secret passages. The impression she had back then of a gigantic palace full of complicated furniture and gold-framed paintings had not been far from what she saw now. Obviously, the glittering 20 foot Christmas tree she remembered dominating the entrance hall, so tall you could touch it from the top of the stairs, was not there, and the lack of hovering holly-festooned candles was a disappointment. However, seasonal adornment aside, it was exactly as she had remembered.

Before she could compliment her host on his beautiful home, there was a tug at her robe. She looked down.

"Will you play with me, please?" asked Lucius, very seriously.

"Mrs Snape would like to clean up first, I'm sure, Lucius," Abraxas was grinning at her when a house-elf apparated in front of them, tearing its ears and weeping.

"Master! Master! You is back! Ohhhhhhhh! Awfulness! Tragedy!"

More distraught elves appeared and began caterwauling and clutching at him.

The grin vanished and Abraxas' face went white.

"Daddy? What's wrong with the elves?" asked Lucius.

"Mrs Snape," Malfoy spoke like a man under the Imperius curse, his expression was immobile and his tone completely bland. "I should be exceedingly grateful if you would take Lucius out to play in the garden. Lucius, why don't you take our nice visitor to the pond?"

Cold dread washed over Eileen and she agreed at once, taking the boy's hand and letting him lead her back out of the front door and away from the dreadful thing happening inside, which he was too young to understand.

As they made their way across the immaculate lawn to the duckpond, where Lucius was keen to show her the "pretty goldfish, although they're orange-fish, really", she noticed the curtains at each window being drawn and the flag with the family crest flying on the high tower being lowered to half-mast. He prattled on happily, oblivious of the terrible change happening in his home. Eileen responded pleasantly enough, but inside, her stomach was beginning to ache from wondering what would happen now; what Lucretia Malfoy's death would mean for Dumbledore's Order and for her own future as a secret agent.

…

Half an hour later, Lucius was giggling at the wriggly tadpoles in the pond while Eileen explained how they would grow up to be frogs. He really was a bright child, she decided, and with all the wealth and power he was going to inherit, who knew what things he would be capable of in the future. Such a pity that his mother had not lived to see any of it.

She spotted the tall figure of Abraxas striding towards them across the lawn, still pale and formal. A snivelling house-elf followed in his wake, struggling to keep apace.

"Bathtime, young wizard," he announced in a tone that brooked no argument. Lucius tried anyway.

"No, Daddy, I'm looking at tagpoles with Mrs Snape," he reasoned, making big adorable grey eyes at Abraxas.

"_Tad_poles," his father corrected, immune. "And Nanny will be taking you up for your bath this minute. Go!"

The elf grabbed the boy firmly by the arm and led him back to the house, whining and reasoning all the way to the dreaded tub.

Eileen and Abraxas stared at each other in the silence that followed.

"I'm so sorry," she said, when it became obvious that he didn't know how to begin.

"Ah. You guessed about my wife?"

She nodded. "I knew that she was gravely ill," Eileen bit her lip, not sure if the word 'gravely' was tasteless or not.

"Did Lucius…?" he waved a hand limply towards the house.

"No!" She protested. "We talked about ducks, fish, frogs and all of that, but nothing about his mother. He's a wonderful child. You must be so proud."

"We are," said Abraxas automatically, then realised his mistake and blanched. "That is to say, we were. I am."

A raindrop landed on Eileen's shoulder. Several more rippled the surface of the pond, but Abraxas didn't seem to see them as he stared at the dull water, reflecting the heavy greyness of the sky.

"We knew this would happen, sooner rather than later," he said softly, almost to himself. "We decided that we didn't want Lucius to be devastated so Lucretia kept her distance. It was hard for her, I think, not to be involved with raising him. She's been too ill to leave her room for the last year, so he would just come in and visit her once a day. We don't want the boy to grow up thinking he's missing something."

Not knowing what to say, Eileen just nodded.

"I'm sorry," he said, suddenly becoming aware of the situation. "You've been pulled into all this awfulness when all you did was happen to pass the playground as my son fell over! None of this is your burden to bear at all. Oh, Merlin, and we haven't even cleaned the mud out of your robes yet!"

"They're fine, don't worry," she waved away his concerns, thinking that Dumbledore and the rest could do without their inside information. A man had lost his wife and a little boy had lost his mother and she wasn't about to start making things worse for them. Not for a bunch of patronising Gryffindor men. "I'll go and leave you to grieve. I shan't intrude any longer."

"I'm afraid I must absolutely insist that the elves wash your clothes," a large raindrop fell onto his nose and he stared up at the sky, noticing the rain at last. "We can't send you back to your husband looking like that. Come inside, we're getting wet."

The elves had her stripped and put into a fashionable green day dress within seconds, assuring her that they would take extra special care of her own robes and bring them back shortly, good as new or better. As she descended the stairs from the little ante-room where she had changed, she noticed that the portraits were staring at her, tutting or openly gasping in horror. For a moment, she felt intimidated by their hostility and wondered how they knew that she had run off and married a muggle, betraying pure-blooded society and causing her own poor mother's death from shame. Then Matilda de Malfoy (according to the plaque on the frame), in sixteenth century dress with a huge gold-coloured ruff, hissed:

"Fie, shameless doxy, couldst thou not wait 'til my lady is cold!?"

With a jolt, Eileen realised that the dress she was wearing must be one of the late Lucretia's. She turned it blue and added polka-dots just in the nick of time before Abraxas came out into the hallway and invited her into the drawing room for tea and scones.

"I'm very grateful for your hospitality, sir," she ventured as he poured. "But surely you will wish to contact the rest of your family and begin to…well, arrange matters?"

"Mrs Snape," he began.

"Eileen," she interrupted swiftly.

"Eileen," he affirmed. "When my family and my wife's family and all of our acquaintances hear the news, they will descend on this house like a swarm of bundimuns, demanding my time and energy, wanting words of consolation and bursting with their own entirely inconsequential prattle. I will be expected to be poised, supportive and masterful, all the while showing the proper amount of desolation - not too much but certainly not too little - befitting the sad occasion." He handed her the milk jug, sighing. "I find I am not quite ready for the pressure of it yet. Lucy is lying at peace upstairs, finally free of her lifelong pain; once Lucius has been bathed he will take a nap before his supper. Thanks to you, I can quietly have some tea without being alone, before the chaos of public mourning descends. I find I am extremely grateful that you happened by this afternoon."

Touched, Eileen raised her cup to him, as though it were a wineglass.

"Glad to help. Do you…would you like to talk about it? About Lucretia, I mean?"

He leaned back in his wing chair and pondered for a moment.

"No, I would not, thank you. I should prefer to hear all about you."

"Me?" Eileen, went rather red. "Oh, there's not much to tell, really."

"No, just gobstones mastery, blood-treachery, indirect matricide and a teenage marriage to some muggle named Tobias. Not very much," he said mildly. The hairs all stood up on the back of Eileen's neck and she began to stammer some kind of denial. "Oh yes, I've just remembered who you are, Miss Prince."

"I'll go," she gasped, standing up so fast she knocked against the tea-table and it rocked precariously for a moment. "Just ask the elves to send my robes…"

"Oh, do sit down," he sighed, amusement showing on his face for the first time since they arrived at the Manor. "I didn't mean it to be an accusation. I'm just interested."

Eileen remained standing, not sure whether she was in danger, being mocked or was just out of her depth with a cleverer wizard.

"Please," he stood too, reaching out for her hand apologetically. "That was unforgivably rude of me. It all came flooding back, all the stuff that people were talking about when you ran off and left the wizarding world. Will you stay? Please. I'm genuinely interested in hearing why you did it."

He saw her hesitation and pressed her hand in his larger, colder one.

"I'm sorry, Eileen. You've been so kind today and I'm behaving like an oaf. Please sit down and finish your tea."

The whole reason she had made contact with Malfoy was to become close to him, to try and find out what he was up to, for the sake of her past mistakes and the future of the wizarding world. Now, he was offering to befriend her, for a short time at least and she owed it to Albus and to herself to go through with what she had started when she agreed to turn spy.

It was the eyes that decided it. Large, deep blue and prematurely crinkled around the edges, Abraxas' eyes held a mixture of kindness and agony, with perhaps a hint of desperation. As a human being, she could not ignore the mute appeal for help she saw there. She retrieved her hand and sank back into the seat. Pleased, he sat too. After a few awkward seconds he said:

"Would you like a scone?"

Eileen said: "Yes, please."

…….


	13. Chapter 13

Recap:

1958 - Lucretia Malfoy has just died and Eileen is keeping Abraxas company until the reality of it sinks in.

2007 - Severus feels guilty about Lucius' life being less glamorous than it once was and is taking him out for a nice meal. Lucius, however, thinks his motivation for the treat is somewhat different.

Note: Tobias' speech - I haven't gone too crazy with writing his Yorkshire accent, but I've added the odd word here and there to remind the reader of the differences between him and the posh Abraxas. 'Appen it'll wuk.

2007

Lucius was still behaving oddly when they followed Cho's directions and apparated into the little alleyway. He kept catching Severus' eye and giving him wide toothy smiles, making the politician feel dreadful. A man like Lucius ought not to be so excited about simply going out to eat. Snape hoped it was not too late to rectify the deprivation he had unwittingly been inflicting on the man he loved.

"Don't be nervous," whispered Lucius, obviously spotting some consternation in his expression. He reached out and gently pulled Severus' hand down away from his face, where he hadn't realised he had been reflexively stroking his scarred cheek.

"Shall we go in?" Snape jammed his hands in his pockets, feeling foolish because Lucius apparently thought he was too ill brought-up to be at ease in such a formal setting. When they marched through the door and beheld the opulent foyer, full of rococo gilding and suited waiting staff rushing purposefully around, Snape realised that he was quite right.

He hesitated, knowing how much he loathed such places and wondering if there was any way, any way at all that he could back out of this nonsensical whim without disappointing Lucius. The Maître D', or the Maîtresse, rather, a powerfully built woman with curly hair and red-rimmed glasses spotted them and swept a withering gaze over him. She wrinkled her nose just enough to imply superiority without blatant rudeness then turned to examine Lucius. And lost all her hauteur by squealing like a child.

"C'est pas vrai!"

"Dominique!" Lucius shrieked back. "Ma belle! Quelle joie! Je n'avais aucune idée que nous viendrons ici!" They rushed into each others' arms and executed a complicated series of air kisses and exclamations which were utterly incomprehensible to Snape. Dominique yelled something at one of the waiters and within seconds, half the staff of the restaurant, including a chef clutching a large meat cleaver, had hurried out into the foyer to joyfully shake Lucius' hand, or slap him on the back as they babbled excitably.

Snape ducked his head and let his hair tumble in front of his face as he did when intimidated. The hubbub continued until one of the waiters asked something in a tone which sounded like a question and there was a sudden silence. Lucius looked over at Severus, who stared blankly at him through strands of hair.

"Enfin, nous sommes divorcés," he said, slowly and emphatically so that Snape could catch the last word. Ah. It seemed that Severus had managed to book them into Lucius and Narcissa's favourite muggle restaurant from the Old Days.

The evening was going from bad to worse.

The throng of French staff had followed Lucius' gaze and were now glaring at him.

"This is Severus," he said in English, taking his arm in an affectionate and slightly proprietorial way and smiled with his head held high, daring them to object. The French continued to stare. Lucius swallowed and switched languages again and said something quietly and quickly that instantly made everyone's expression change to one of admiration. The chef put down his cleaver and stepped forward and shook his hand, almost reverently. Dominique did the same.

"You are most welcome indeed, sir," she said, all traces of superciliousness or curiosity removed. "René! The best table in the house for these gentlemen please!"

"Eh, Madame," the waiter called René looked slightly uncomfortable. "The best table is being used by, er, _Monsieur Blair._"

"N'importe!" She shrugged. "Move him! It's not like he deserves it. I insist upon the best table for Monsieur Malfoy et son beau."

"Did you hear that?" asked Lucius cheerfully as the staff settled them at table. "You're my _beau_!"

Snape hunkered down in his seat, acutely aware of the ex-Prime Minister giving him death glares from his new table next to the toilets. "What did you say to them?"

"Hm?" Lucius snatched up the wine list and became very interested in it.

"They were horrified that I had replaced your wife until you said something. What was it?"

"Oh, well," he flipped a page nonchalantly. "I merely translated your job into something a muggle could understand."

"What in Merlin's name you say!?" hissed Snape.

"I told them you were head of the Secret Service," he replied quickly. "Now, how about a nice red to begin? Unless you think champagne would be more appropriate?"

"Head of the…?" Severus lowered his voice as a waiter began fussing with napkins.

"Naturally. You have shown me all those movies. I imagine that no matter what is going on in real-life politics, Mr James Bond will always be cooler and more glamorous than the suits who run the country," he smiled roguishly. "Besides, it's not far from the truth. _M._"

Snape let it go when he noticed the sparkle of enjoyment on Lucius' face, reminding him that the whole point of the meal had been to entertain his cultured lover. It may have been his imagination, but he seemed to be sitting taller in his seat than he did at home, carrying his shapely chin at a slightly higher angle. His movements were also more poised and with a thrill, Severus realised that Lucius looked more like the arrogant youth whose beauty and authority had unknowingly seized his unworthy heart and demanded a lifelong adoration in the bleak corridors of Hogwarts.

Their journey to this point had been a long and dangerous slog, yet somehow here he was, snotty, greasy little Snivellus sitting opposite the king of the castle, still mesmerised in the presence of his lord. His chest swelled with smugness as he noted that, unlike the miserable hungry child of thirty five years ago, the middle-aged Severus Snape would be taking Lucius Malfoy home to bed.

He nodded in reply to the question he had missed in his moment of daydreaming. Lucius beamed and ordered a bottle of '85 Krug, whatever that was.

The menu, Severus noted with dread, was entirely in French. Keeping a neutral countenance, he scanned the meaningless words for anything familiar which he might order without the embarrassment of admitting ignorance. He made a mental note to snarl at Cho in the morning for not warning him.

Before he could become too dismayed, Lucius leaned over the table and pointed delightedly to the first item on the card. The duck in cherry sauce, he explained, was one of the specialities of the house and had won awards. Then he frowned as his eyes fell on the second thing. He'd always had a fondness for sea bass but was not in the mood for it this evening. His finger moved down a place where he chattily admitted that he was pleased to see they were still serving the veal which was always so tender and goodness, wasn't it going to be a tough decision when at number four they had delicious baked scallops?!

It didn't take long for Snape to notice that he was being discreetly guided through the maze without having to mention he needed help or admit his shame. He wondered whether he had ever loved Lucius as much as he did just then - as beautiful and elegant as in the past but with a new caring which made Severus feel simultaneously adored and unworthy. The only cloud on the horizon was the malevolent dark one which lurked at the back of his mind, reminding him of their terrible genetic connection and the fact that his love for this wizard was now immoral.

The wine waiter arrived with what turned out to be a bottle of vintage champagne and Snape had a flash of inspiration as the only French phrase he knew popped unbidden into his mind. They clinked glasses.

"Je t'aime," he whispered. Lucius went so red he wondered for a moment whether he had got it right. Deciding that he owed it to Lucius to follow his lead in being gracious, he covered his lover's discomfort by changing the subject. He reached into his pocket.

"I have something special for you," he said.

Lucius spluttered then made a funny noise as champagne went up his nose.

"Are you all right?" Snape asked, concerned. Lucius seemed to be in a peculiar mood this evening. He couldn't understand it at all.

"Mmm!" Lucius nodded enthusiastically, dabbing the corners of his eyes with a napkin. He cleared his throat and said breathily: "Yes! Yes, yes, thank you. Fine. Do go on."

"I brought something for you," his hand clenched inside his pocket, wondering now whether this was a good idea. Perhaps the fancy restaurant was not the best place to do it, but Snape was not sure whether he would be able to summon up the courage again if his missed this flush of bravado. He swallowed.

Lucius leaned towards him with wide eyes.

"You were asking about Spinner's End at the weekend, so I brought this to show you," he pulled out the photograph of the Scoursby Primary School Christmas play and pushed it across the table. Lucius stared at the picture of the children uncomprehendingly.

"Oh, of course," Snape smiled, misinterpreting his puzzlement. "Muggle photographs don't move. There I am, aged five, almost six, with the other boys and girls. It's tradition at muggle schools, you see, for the younger pupils to act out the story of the birth of their god as part of the celebrations…"

It wasn't going well. As Severus explained the Christmas story, Lucius became more and more confused until he was forced to stop. There was an awkward silence. Hurt by the poor response he had received to his attempt at being open about his lower-class muggle childhood, Snape took the photograph and slipped it back into his coat.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I had believed you expressed an interest in becoming acquainted with life in the town I grew up in. I shan't mention it again."

Confused beyond belief, Lucius blinked at Severus, wondering what on earth was going on. He had been preparing to give a suitably shocked response when he brought out the ring and popped the question - mastering his emotions in order to show the proper amount of joy without actually screaming and running around the room with excitement, as certain instincts were advising him. The younger man had obviously gone to much trouble to make the evening perfect for the proposal, even after a very busy day at work. He must have researched Lucius' favourite restaurant, cunningly skipped the waiting list to secure a table at very short notice, learned how to say "I love you" in French, despite having no knowledge of the language, yet despite all these preparations, something had gone wrong.

To his eyes, trained in deciphering the tiniest nuance of expression in that striking face, he could see that Snape was now looking upset and deflated about something. He had appeared nervous as he reached into his pocket, yet had pulled out not a ring or other token with which to seal their alliance, but that old photograph. Then the explanation struck him and he felt so sorry for his lover that he felt a slight pain in the chest for a second.

Poor old Severus had gone to all the effort of arranging this charming scenario then had gone and forgotten the ring! It was obvious. He had reached for it and found only the picture, so had made up the story about wanting to talk about his past to cover the terrible mistake.

Lucius determined not to make it any worse and cursed himself for not concealing his disappointment well enough.

"Oh my love, I'm so sorry!" he exclaimed, reaching over to hold his hand just as their food arrived, so he had to take it back again after the briefest touch. "I was so hungry I wasn't paying proper attention! So rude of me! I can't think what's the matter with me today, sorry. How cute you looked when you were small! A gorgeous little imp! Show me the picture again, I want to see you as the scowling inn-keeper."

Reluctantly, Snape complied, confused. It was most unusual for Lucius to be affected by food, or lack of it, like that. He hoped he was not coming down with something. It would be a typically evil twist of fate if they had pretended to be ill to cover up the DNA episode, only for Malfoy to _really_ fall ill shortly afterwards. Or perhaps he had left him without high-quality food for too long and the mere anticipation of it had turned his wits. He was gazing at the muggle photograph with intense interest now, though, simultaneously attacking his gigot of lamb with satisfaction.

"So, your role was to tell this Virgin Mary and her husband that your hotel was fully booked," he carefully speared three green beans. Snape nodded cautiously. It appeared that he had been listening, after all. Lucius frowned. "It was rather foolish of them not to have made a reservation. Especially at Christmas time!"

1958

As time flew by, Eileen forgot that Lucretia Malfoy was lying dead upstairs, forgot that she was only supposed to be keeping him company until he could bear to inform all the relatives of the sad event and begin official mourning, forgot the unpleasant bigot she had known at school.

Abraxas seemed so earnest as they swapped life stories that Eileen felt slightly guilty for lying to him. She quashed it by forcing herself to remember with whom she was dealing - the terror of Hogwarts and a man Dumbledore suspected of being involved in horrible plots to threaten innocent lives. Despite the warmth of the drawing room, with its fancy hangings and lovely upholstery, she needed to be on her guard.

One of the gold clocks on the mantel began to chime.

"Oh well," he stretched and looked over at it. "I've had a positively lovely afternoon chatting with you, Eileen, but I'm afraid I can't shirk my responsibilities any longer. It's six o'clock and I need to start my new life as a widower."

"Oh, I…" she began, moved by the resignation in his lovely blue eyes as he intoned the word 'widower', then realised what else he had said. "Six o'clock! It can't be!" When she leaped to her feet, cursing and flustered, Abraxas rose too.

"Have I made you late?"

"Oh no!" she hurried to the door. "I'm sorry, Abraxas. I have to go! My deepest condolences. Sorry."

She dived into the fireplace just as he was asking her to come back and visit soon.

…….

"Where's me dinner?"

"Toby, I'm sorry," her voice was a whimper, not because she had never been hated before, she had experienced too many encounters in the wizarding world with people who despised her for that, but because the person glaring at her with hatred this time was _him._ Her wonderful Toby, the man who loved her and laughed with her, who had tried his best to make her happy and insisted, against all evidence to the contrary, that she was the most beautiful girl in the world, was absolutely livid. With her.

Eileen had never seen him like this before - cold fury distorting the face she had thought of as so striking into something ugly and sallow, cruel and malevolent as a vulture. It was a terrifying change to his usual manner, made worse by the knowledge that she had caused the transformation.

"I just got carried away with something and…and…"

His hand slammed on the tabletop so hard that the mug sitting on it jumped in the air then landed wrong, spilling tea. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to master his anger. When he spoke again, his voice was calmer, but his face was still pinched with fury.

"Eileen. You are my missus. For the past six months of our marriage, this house has worked in a certain way. I get up early in the morning, spend all day on my feet in that factory, working them machines non-stop, with twenty minutes for a sandwich and a ciggy at noon. It's boring. My back aches and my ears ring. Not that I'm complainin' about that - it's a steady job and better than what many folk has to put up with. In a few years, I hope to get line supervisor's job, and then mebbe move up to floor supervisor. But none of this is the point I'm tryin' to make here. I work for_you_, Eileen. For us. So we can live and have a family and a better home one day. That's the reason that Batworth's gets the sweat of me brow," he moved closer, and it took all of her willpower not to cringe away from his anger. "I don't ask much in return. You can use your magic to keep the house clean and me shirts washed, I don't care how you do that, but one thing your have to do," his face was almost touching hers now, twitching with ire. "The only job you HAVE to perform in all the hours of the day, is to make my dinner."

She gave a little sob.

"It's not much, lass. You've no work of your own. We've no little 'uns for you to look after. No scrubbing to do that a magic spell can't take care of. All I ask is that when I get home from work of a night, knackered and fairly starvin', there's a decent meal waiting for me when I get in. I don't want anything fancy. Just a bit o' meat and spuds, or greens, or a pasty, or summat. Is that too much to ask?"

"No, Toby," she whispered.

"No," he echoed. "I didn't think so. Now, I'm goin' ter the pub and I'm going to ask if they'll hot me up a pie in the kitchen."

He stalked away and Eileen collapsed into a chair, sobbing and hating herself. He was right to be upset. Every word had been the truth. The very least a working man deserved after a day spent slaving over those clamouring machines was that the wife he supported with the precious few pounds, shillings and pence he earned had a hot meal waiting for him when the end-of-shift whistle blew.

She had been carried away with her duties in the world which she had gone to such lengths to escape, and in the process had neglected the only person who truly loved her. The constant jaunts into the magical community had made her forget that, a mere six months ago, she had chosen to leave it for the muggle one.

The people of Scoursby thought her very strange, but Tobias had explained away any unusual behaviour by telling everyone that not only was she from the South of England (every Yorkshireman knew that folks were different down there), but also that she had been raised posh. As she was so young, smiled whenever she saw anyone and always had a sparklingly clean home and husband, they were willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. So far, at least. She knew that some of Toby's mates liked to tease him for having an odd missus, but he'd never made a word of complaint until now.

She had ruined their happiness and Toby would probably stay sulking in the pub until closing time and she wouldn't be able to make it up to him because he would be too drunk to listen by then.

Unable to bear a whole evening on her own being miserable in their little love-nest which now felt cramped instead of cosy, she wiped her nose and headed off in search of comfort.

…….

It was Friday night, so she knew where to look.

Eileen hurried along Hogsmeade High Street, her hood pulled around her face partly to conceal her identity from anyone who had no business knowing her business, partly to protect her from all the memories of those termtime Saturday afternoon outings. Looking at the sedate little village by the waning evening light, it was hard to imagine that a couple of minutes in Honeyduke's had ever been the greatest thrill of her life. She had never been as partial to sweets as some of the other children, but the Hogsmeade weekends had represented a taste of what she had supposed then to be adult life. The work of the week behind them, they could wander freely around the shops, with no one to supervise how pocket money got spent. A trashy romance novel, a butterbeer, one's own bodyweight in ice mice - the teacher supervising the trip didn't care. After the rules and regimented life of school, where you had to do _that_ at a certain time, or be _there_and have spent the previous night working on _the other,_ these afternoons away had been delightful.

The place looked rather shabby now. The shops were all closed and dark, looking smaller and displaying treats which, to the witch now aged a positively ancient nineteen years, seemed sadly unexciting. Even the warm glow emanating from the Three Broomsticks failed to fill her with the same excitement it used to.

A few hundred yards down the road stood a much darker, quieter doorway; dirtier and far less welcoming. She retreated further into her cloak and slipped inside, aware of other faces, covered for less wholesome reasons than her own, staring from behind tankards or shiftily behind gloved fingers.

A small frisson of magic touched the back of her neck and she wheeled around to where the barman was wiping a table next to her. He shrugged.

"No offence, miss. Age-verification spell. Almighty Albus," he jerked a thumb in the direction of Hogwarts, "Gave me an ear-bashing last week about serving underage kids in here. I have to make sure. Take it as a compliment."

"They serve students in the Broomsticks," she pointed out, still conscious of the whole pub eavesdropping, whether they made it obvious or not.

"There's there," the barman scratched his long white beard. "And here's here. If you don't know the difference, girl, I think you might be in the wrong hostelry."

"No," she smirked with bravado that didn't reach as far as her trembling knees. "This is the place for the likes of me. Ogden's on the rocks, please."

The landlord headed for the bar, shaking his head and Eileen saw that Hagrid look up from his dingy corner of the room. He waved an enormous hand and stood to greet her, beaming.

"How's my princess?" he boomed affectionately, enveloping her in the country's biggest, warmest and most reassuring hug. It felt wonderful to be held by someone as kind and uncomplicated as dear, sweet Hagrid after the deception at Malfoy Manor and the awful scene at Spinner's End.

She pressed her face into his solid chest and began to cry.

…….

NB: _"C'est pas vrai!"_ - I don't believe it!

_"Je n'avais aucune idée que nous viendrons ici!"_ - I had no idea we were coming here.

_"Enfin, nous sommes divorcés," _- well, we're divorced.

_"N'importe",_ - so what, or, no matter, who cares etc.

Merci! x


	14. Chapter 14

2007

It was very late when Lucius and Severus managed to manoeuvre their full bellies out of the restaurant in the direction of home. Without even needing to vocalise, they had mutually agreed that after such a large and glorious meal the very least they could do was walk the short distance home rather than apparate.

Severus was delighted with the way the evening's treat had worked out, although Lucius' behaviour had seemed a little odd at times. He had helped out very sweetly when he realised that Severus understood no French and had clearly enjoyed the refined atmosphere. He had praised the expensive food and eulogised over the wine, but sometimes had appeared to be a little bit too excited, as though he had been expecting more. Snape worried that he had omitted to do something, some tradition or procedure which was supposed to be carried out.

He hoped to Merlin that Lucius was not thinking about their relationship. Their _other_ relationship. It was possible that after having a few days to mull over the revelation that his lover was actually an illegitimate Malfoy, sharing half his DNA and thus being his long-lost little brother, the older wizard was entertaining doubts about the advisability of their union.

Unless he had been trying to find a way to broach another aspect connected with the discovery. Perhaps some family archives had survived the destruction of the Manor, lying forgotten in the corner of a Gringott's vault emptied of Malfoy treasure by a vengeful Ministry. It was possible that he ought to be made privy to family secrets of some description - some curse or congenital behaviour pattern. The Malfoys had possessed a great many cupboards. There was bound to have been a skeleton in one or two of them and Lucius could have been trying to tell him something important. For such a confident man, he could be a rather cowardly at times.

Now, however, Malfoy looked extremely content as they strolled along the river back to the Head of the MLE's official residence in the narrower streets of Westminster. It was a warm night, London buzzed gently around them and all the tourist attractions were illuminated along the sparkling Thames. Water lapped quietly at the river wall beneath them. Lucius paused to lean against the railing and gave a deep sigh.

"How lovely," he observed, taking in everything with one long, languid sweep of the eyes. "The perfect time for grand romantic gestures, don't you think?" he glanced slyly at his lover.

"Indeed," smirked Snape, recognising a request for a kiss when he heard one. Surreptitiously checking no one was looking, he stepped forwards and kissed him on the lips. Lucius smiled at him expectantly. "What?" he asked, faltering. Surely he didn't want more than that in such a public place?

Before explanation or altercation was possible, Snape felt a familiar tingling in his left palm. Apologising to Lucius, he balled his fist then opened it to reveal a tiny silver patronus with a message for his ears only. Lucius scowled, well aware of what was coming next.

"I'm needed at the office," Snape said pointlessly.

"I guessed," snipped Lucius.

"It shouldn't take long," he hoped aloud.

"Fine. Go on then," Lucius stepped backwards stiffly. "There's a dark corner just along from that building, you can apparate unseen from there."

Snape grabbed his hand, wishing he could find out where he had gone wrong during the meal and the short walk afterwards, aside from being forced to go to work when he ought to have gone home for a night of love.

"I had a wonderful time," he said as warmly as he could, then dashed away, cursing the MLE dunderheads who couldn't manage for a few hours without him.

Lucius listened for the minute 'crack' of apparition, then sank down onto a cold stone bench.

The evening _had_ been wonderful, thoroughly wonderful, but every delicious mouthful of gourmet goodness had been tinged with anticipation of a thrill which had failed to materialise. Every movement Snape made had set Lucius' heart beating overtime as he waited for the proposal. Each time he cleared his throat, Lucius had schooled his face into a neutral expression with which to receive the joyful suggestion. Each new topic raised by his companion had caused Lucius to wonder how best to guide him towards what - he had believed would be a nerve-wracking question. Lucius had in fact spent most of the evening on the edge of his seat as he waited for the appearance of the delightful little box certain to contain a charming engagement ring from Caboodle's.

Had Severus changed his mind? Or was it a simple case of nerves? The latter was entirely possible. Although Dominique and all the staff had made them very welcome once they recognised Lucius as an old regular, the restaurant was probably still a fairly intimidating place for a man not accustomed to such things. Perhaps he was just waiting for the perfect moment. Although, Lucius snorted to himself, what could be more perfect than here and now, full of great food, strolling together in the early hours with London purring in its mellowest mood?

Poor Severus. For one of the world's bravest wizards, he could be terribly cowardly at times.

Screams of laughter interrupted Lucius' contemplation and he glanced up to see a group of young men hurrying along the waterfront. Although the fashion was different to what it had been in his younger days - the hair had changed, as had the shoes and the language, Lucius still recognised the sort of men they were.

"I don't want to go!" howled one.

"Shut up, you always say that and you always love it."

"I hate the Eagle. It mings!"

"Yeah, but Davey boy'll be there!"

"Hee hee!"

"Wa-hey!"

"Shut up! I don't care if Dave's there or if he isn't!"

"The hell you don't!"

"Shut up! I hate the Eagle."

"Yeah, right. Go home then."

"Not going?"

"No. Shut up! I'm coming. But I still hate the Eagle."

"Heh heh."

Lucius' eyes went wide. He remembered a place called the Eagle from a lifetime ago - the seediest, smokiest, dirtiest gay venue in the whole country; a hotbed of prostitution, disease and illegal substances. At about eleven o' clock, the lights would go down to the point of near obscurity and there would be dancing to jarringly jolly pop songs and the occasional murder. The muggle police raided it every few months and always found plenty to keep them busy.

After a day of dodging sycophants or buttering up the Minister of Magic, the old Lucius would ruffle his little son's hair then head down to the Eagle for a few hours of indulgence. The fouler the atmosphere seemed, the more fun he used to have.

Across the water, Big Ben tolled one o'clock and Lucius reasoned that it would not be strictly healthy to go straight to bed after eating so much food. Especially as he had been unable to resist the parade of amazing cheeses he had forgotten even existed after his stint on soup and stale bread in Azkaban.

His stomach gave a prolonged tortuous gurgle of agreement with his rationale and he began walking in the same direction as the group of gay young men, though at an entirely non-predatory and un-creepy distance. He would just take a peek through the door of the Eagle, just to see.

Just for Old Times' sake.

xx

Snape crept in as quietly as he could. He had cursed the MLE team in his head for dragging him away from Lucius' special treat, but he had been glad they consulted him. It was a shame they had taken two hours to get to the point, as Lucius would be asleep by now, no doubt dreaming Camembert-induced dreams.

He used the bathroom and stripped off his coat and boots before tiptoeing into the bedroom, which he soon found to be empty.

"Lucius?" he called, moving through the dark flat. "Peggy?"

After a few seconds, the little house-elf appeared, rubbing her eyes.

"Master?" she yawned accusingly.

"Do you know where Lucius is, please?"

"No idea."

"Has he been home?"

"No."

Snape tried not to allow the niggling feeling of worry take hold as he settled down in the armchair to wait for Lucius to come home. He had been only slightly drunk when they parted on the South Bank, and very close to home, so it was unlikely that any accident had befallen him…wasn't it?

xx

1958

"Master Headmaster asks if Mistress would be minding to wait a few moments, please," the elf gestured towards a little ante-room that Eileen had never noticed before and offered her a seat.

"Certainly," she said, looking around the cosy little chamber. Despite the pleasant furnishings and sumptuous paintings of the scenery around Hogwarts, it was oddly disproportionate, with a truly enormous medieval stone fireplace more suited to heating the Great Hall than such a little waiting-room. "Is this the floo entrance to the castle?" she asked the elf.

"Yes, mistress," the elf bowed. "Master Headmaster is preferring visitors to be apparating outside the gates then walking up the path, but this fireplace is being here in case of emergencies. Is very very well warded."

The initial meeting with Abraxas had gone reasonably well, she thought, although Lucretia's death may have made him more open and talkative than usual. Little Lucius seemed to like her very much. There might be a way to stay on good terms with the father if she developed a relationship with the son. Eileen sat and composed her report inside her head, unsure how much detail the old man would want and worrying in case she had done anything wrong on her first assignment. She decided that she would tell him absolutely everything on this occasion, then he would be able to let her know which parts of it - if any - were of interest to him and his schemes.

Albus Dumbledore remained a mystery to her. He clearly had more brains and charisma than any of the high-level politicians. The common myth stated that he had no interest in power games and preferred to nurture the young in the charming environment of Hogwarts. Eileen had already deduced that, with his well-placed network of informants and sleeping collaborators, the "Order", as Moody had called it, he was in a perfect position to… Do what, exactly? Advise the minister if pure-blood started a war against muggle-born? Or could this all be part of something more elaborate and sinister? She knew that, despite all his play-acting with fluffy slippers and bags of boiled sweets, Dumbledore could quite easily turn around at any given moment and seize control of the country.

She was obviously a pawn in this game, with no real control over her next move. Maybe all of them were - Septimus, Moody, even Malfoy and his small boy - but perhaps they were better off than some. Unlike the oblivious majority of the country's magical inhabitants, they knew a game was in progress. At least she had a place on the board, even if it was at a low level.

The door opened and an old lady entered, smiling teasingly.

"Now, Albus," she spoke over her shoulder to Dumbledore, who came in behind her. "I see right through you every time, you young rascal!"

Eileen covered her mouth to stifle a giggle at the idea of Albus being addressed thus. He caught her eye and winked.

"I don't know what you mean, Cassandra my dear," he shook his head in feigned confusion. "I merely invited a dear friend over for tea."

"Yes," she smirked at him. "It's funny how all my old friends decide to invite me to tea when they are really desperate to see the future…"

Something clicked in the back of Eileen's mind and her legs propelled her upright.

"You're Cassandra Penhallurick!" she squeaked.

"Yes, dear," Cassandra smiled.

Divination had not been taught at Hogwarts for several centuries, considered too nebulous a discipline for students without the gift of sight (i.e. most of them) to learn. Those few who did possess a connection to the mystical beyond could hardly be expected to slot an hour of falling into trances or prophesying into their timetables at a certain time each week, say between Care of Magical Creatures and lunch. This didn't mean, however, that none of the pupils had an interest in it. A lot of the girls in Eileen's class had gone through a phase of trying to enter into a state of precognition at the weekends, reading all about the best methods of doing so from books in the library. Unfortunately, none of them had been any good at it and their enthusiasm had waned after a while.

Cassandra Penhallurick had been their idol. Unarguably the greatest Seer the British Isles had produced since Merlin himself, she had been something of an icon to the unofficial Div Club. Myrtle had even had a small picture of her, torn from Witch Weekly, stuck onto the side of her wardrobe.

"This is Eileen Snape," Dumbledore recognised the look of amazed adoration and introduced them. "Another friend of mine."

The witches shook hands.

"Wicked Albus is trying to make me tell his future," Cassandra confided mischievously.

"But the Sight is not something to be bidden at will," Eileen glared at Dumbledore, cross that he was obviously trying to drag this amazing individual into his great game, to be another of his poor pawns. "You said in your book, Mrs Penhallurick, that the Beyond summons you, and not the other way round."

Cassandra smiled as though about to deliver a witty answer, then stopped. Neither Dumbledore nor Eileen noticed the split-second furtive look as her eyes darted from the one to the other. She swallowed.

"Well, very nice to meet you, Miss Snape," she said, looking suddenly in a hurry to be away.

"Mrs," corrected Eileen, attributing the slight widening of the Seer's eyes to the fact that she looked a bit young to be married already.

"I see," she said, looking the girl up and down before turning back to Albus. Although her parting words were warm, there was a barely perceptible coldness in her manner towards Dumbledore which had not been there before. "It was very nice to see you, even if you did have an ulterior motive for inviting me. Thank you for allowing a frail old lady to use the floo instead of splinching her old bones."

When she had departed and the floo had been sealed off against unwanted intrusion once more, Albus turned to Eileen with an infectious cheery smile.

"Well, dearest girl, will you come into the sitting room and tell me how you got on with the Malfoys yesterday?"

xx

Cassandra arrived home to find that her daughter and granddaughter had dropped in for one of their impromptu visits.

Emily appeared to be concentrating on filling in a complicated tax form on the sofa, while Sybil was sitting at the card table, putting sticky fingerprints all over her best crystal ball.

"You all right, Ma? You look a bit pale," asked Emily, peering over her the top of her glasses. Before she could answer, Sybil interrupted.

"Grandma's fine. She just got surprised by a mini-vision, that's all."

It never failed to amaze her how the dumpy and rather slow-witted child, now nine and getting louder and less charming with every birthday, could show such extraordinary perception on rare occasions such as this. She had been delighted to find that Emily had not been cursed with the gift of Sight, being more at home with accountancy, but it looked as though Sybil had inherited some manner of extra-sensory ability, though not full-blown Seeing. Fortunately, it seemed nothing like Cassandra's own terrible talent, which had caused her so much pain.

"You're right, Sybil," she smiled. "I had an Out Of The Blue today."

"What was it?" her granddaughter asked eagerly. Emily shook her head and returned to her figures, still as uninterested in her mother's nebulous world as she had always been.

"Well," Cassandra hesitated. She had a personal rule not to divulge information which might affect the outcome of the future, no matter how much wheedling the likes of Albus Dumbledore tried on her. However, she did not want Sybil to start using her potential gifts to try and guess at facts which might cause trouble. "I met the future mother of a Minister of Magic just now!" She settled for a fairly neutral fact that a nine-year-old would find dull.

Looking disappointed, Sybil sighed and turned back to the smeary crystal ball.

"Maybe. But that's not what startled you."

Cassandra swallowed. She had indeed been startled by the flash of vision which had come when she met Eileen Snape, despite all the things she had witnessed in this world and the one to come.

Occasionally the Sight allowed her to access to secrets that people liked to keep well hidden, aspects of personality or proclivities they liked to suppress. Doting husbands only one nag short of becoming murderers, intelligent people with horrifying prejudices, pillars of society scarcely able to remain upright thanks to the slow erosion of firewhiskey. Cassandra thought she had Seen Albus Dumbledore's great secret decades ago when they were both much younger.

Now it looked like he was the darkest horse of them all.

xx

Tobias made short work of his mutton chop and mashed potato, swilling the final mouthful down with a long gulp of ale and smacking his lips in delight.

"Champion," he announced. "Now that's what I call a cracking bit o' bait."

So relieved she couldn't even answer, Eileen beamed at him. She had been on tenterhooks all day, hoping that he would come home in a better mood that day and would be satisfied with the meal she had taken so much care in preparing, the muggle way. Dumbledore had understood perfectly when she laid down her new condition - she would not undertake any work for the Order if it interfered with her duty to her husband. It limited her usefulness as a spy somewhat, but Toby was relying on her too, and Toby didn't have an army of house-elves at his disposal.

"Come on then, lass, get yer gladrags on," he leaned over and patted her on the cheek.

"What?"

"Run upstairs and put that nice blue frock on, you look proper gorgeous in that," he gave her a saucy wink.

"Why?" Eileen asked, confused. The blue dress was her best outfit, saved only for special occasions. It was very strange that he should want her to wear it on an ordinary weekday evening.

"Because," Tobias flushed. "Because I was a grumpy old bugger last night and I want to take you to the pictures to say sorry for shouting. Unless you'd rather go dancing?" He looked contrite to the point of misery now. "Cadge is taking his missus to a dance over in Wakefield later. Would you prefer that? Or we could do both. A film first and a dance after. How does that sound?"

Eileen giggled and hugged him, thrilled at his apology and thrilled to have her sweet and considerate Toby back again. He squeezed back tightly and pulled her into his lap, still looking rather sheepish.

"That sounds lovely," she whispered in his ear.

"Only the best for my princess," he murmured against the skin of her neck.

Everything was as it should be once more. Toby adored her and she was going to take care of him until death did them part. She could be a good muggle-style wife and as well as a spy.

xx


	15. Chapter 15

D15.

Disclaimer: Still belongs to JK Rowling (although I'm sure she doesn't want it) and I'm still making no profit whatsoever from fan fiction. Thank you.

Recap:

Severus still thinks Abraxas Malfoy is his real father. Lucius still thinks it's Hagrid. Narcissa believes it to be Arthur's lecherous dad, Septimus Weasley.

Severus took Lucius out for a lovely meal in a posh restaurant as a treat. Unfortunately, Lucius thought he was going to propose and was a little perturbed when he failed to pop the question. As they walked home, Severus was called into work to quickly deal with a small crisis and Lucius spotted a group of men heading for a place he used to know very well…

xxxxxxx

2007

There it was. Looking every bit as grotty and sleazy as before, the Eagle nestled between a boarded up clothes shop covered in graffiti and a religious bookshop, battened down during the twilight hours behind thick metal shutters to protect its holy contents from any stray sin emanating from the neighbours.

Lucius hovered on the far side of the malodorous little back-alley for a moment, wondering whether he actually wanted to enter after coming this far. He had no interest in sordid escapades in dark corners or on fire escapes, neither did he want to get more drunk than he already was on champagne and after-dinner cognac. In the past, this place had been somewhere he could run to when he needed to escape the pressures of the Dark Lord's demands, Fudge's bumbling pomposity, Narcissa's…, well, her presence, really. It wasn't that he disliked her, the way some of his associates hated their expedient marriages. Inexplicably, the plain fact that she lived in his house, as his wife, meticulously fulfilling all of the social criteria required of a witch in her position with style and capability, made Lucius feel like a freak. Both Narcissa and Lucius had had the responsibilities of their rank thrust upon them and while she had calmly excelled at everything demanded of her, he had often felt trapped.

Being a Malfoy had been a wonderful thing to be when he was young, there could be no denying it, but soon after leaving school he had realised that there were drawbacks with everyone knowing who you were the moment you walked into a room. It meant that they watched you.

The sycophants watched to see how they ought to behave. Other groups of people he hadn't realised were so numerous watched because they wanted to see him fail. The rivals, the jealous, those with alternative moral structures or those who believed they had been wronged at some point in history by some Malfoy or other - all these eyes thirsted for a sign of weakness they could exploit in order to destroy Lucius. Under such scrutiny from wizards there could be no lowering of his shielding spells, not a moment of rest. Certainly no trace of extra-marital activity.

With young men.

So there had been hardly any encounters with magical men. Instead, he had retreated to the anonymity of the muggle world and in particular, this place.

As he hesitated outside the shabby joint he used to so enjoy sinking into, he noticed two big changes since his last visit over ten years ago. The first was a large white sign on the door, saying "As of 1st July 2007, it will be an offence to SMOKE inside these premises." Underneath someone had scrawled "but it's OK to POKE inside these premises." There were a lot of small round marks burned into the plastic, where critics of the new law had made their feelings known by stubbing out their fags on the notice. The other difference was that about a dozen men were standing outside, shouting into mobile telephones. Although some were very close to each other, they paced up and down the tarmac, oblivious to everything but the tinny snatches of private speech from persons unknown.

The muggle world changed faster than the wizarding one, if you discounted the massive upheaval of the war. He decided that he was glad he had come back here, but felt no need to enter. The dirtiness of the place no longer held any kind of Bohemian glamour - either because everyone who knew him now knew that he was gay, because he was too old for late-night misbehaviour, or because, and he smiled as the light dawned, because nothing he could get up to inside that pub would be as nice as going home and sliding into bed next to Severus.

"Who am I and what have I done with Lucius Malfoy?" he murmured to himself, delighted with his drunken joke. Chuckling, he turned to walk away when the door banged open and a snatch of music tumbled out along with another telephonist.

Lucius froze as something stirred in the depths of his memory.

It was a dreadful cheesy, bouncy pop song, so catchy and happy it almost made one want to vomit. It had been a big floor-filler in the eighties, when Lucius had made his first forays into the muggle gay scene and had persisted like a stubborn rash into the nineties and right up until his incarceration had cut him off from everything. Of their own volition, Lucius' feet carried him to the door and he peered inside at the crowd, bopping away to what, all these years later, was clearly _still_ a big floor-filler.

His head began to nod in time to the music. Just one dance. It wouldn't matter. He need not buy a drink or speak to anyone or have any kind of interaction. These muggle dancing songs were very short anyway, no more than five minutes each, not like those dreadful long warbling opera numbers Narcissa was so fond of. Severus would understand completely if he just went in for one dance before going home - Merlin, Severus would probably still be at work and need not even know.

"Listen!" yelled a 30-something man who appeared suddenly behind Lucius. He held the telephone through the doorway for a second, then put it back on the side of his head. "They're playing our tune! You _have_ to come down here! Stop being so boring and get on the sodding bus!" He shook his head and slipped the small shiny rectangle into his pocket. "'Scuse me, mate," he addressed Lucius, who was still blocking the entrance. "Can I get past? You going in?"

"Yes," he replied.

Lucius stayed near to the exit and joyfully swayed with the crowd as it danced, drank, smoked and flirted along to the music. Closing his eyes, he let himself drift away on the ecstatic beat and the familiar smells of sweat and tobacco. He hadn't _missed_ this exactly, but it was nice to feel that sensation of being miles away from the real world. The song bounced along to its conclusion and he felt slightly regretful that it was over so soon, until the opening bars of a new tune began and a few people cheered. Impossible! He remembered this one too! This ancient slice of disco had been kitsch and antiquated in 1980, yet the Eagle's 21st century clientele, some of whom, he noted with consternation, had not even been born at that time, were clearly in raptures over it.

One more dance. Another five minutes. What harm could come of it?

During the fourth song, he opened his eyes and began to take stock of the surroundings. Amongst the unwashed hoardes, the effeminate, the butch and the just plain weird-looking, he spotted a very tasty-looking bottom in tight white trousers. Of course, he was not interested in _doing_ anything with the bottom or its owner, who was leaning against the wall with his back to Lucius. The very thought of touching anyone but Severus made him feel very peculiar in a way he might have to examine later, when he was alone and in a quiet place. Still, there was no harm in looking at the bottom. It was like appreciating a work of art - one sat back and admired beauty on the wall of a gallery, without wanting to take it home and…

That train of thought jumped the track, crashed and burned horribly as the owner of the artful rear glanced in his direction.

Two identical sets of grey eyes locked on each other with identical horrified expressions and Lucius stopped dancing as realisation of whom he had been ogling dawned on him.

When a room full of inebriated men is dancing wildly to pop music, it is not wise to stand still. Lucius had no time to remember this, however, as a large man who had been leaping around enthusiastically accidentally planted his elbow with tremendous force in the side of Lucius' jaw.

Lucius took a table covered with glasses down with him. As he hit the floor, the deafening crash was accompanied by angry shouts from all around. Pain exploded across his head and the damp, sticky floor beneath him pitched and shook until someone seized him under the armpits and hauled him into a sitting position.

"Dad, are you alright?" Draco yelled above the din.

"Harrrrgh," Lucius' mouth wouldn't work, he was swallowing his own blood and everything hurt too much.

"I think you've dislocated your jaw," the junior healer began, peering closely as him in the dim room. Behind them, the sounds of a fight breaking out could be heard over the thumping music - no doubt as a result of the table loaded with overpriced drinks upending - and the atmosphere immediately lost all its light enjoyment and became menacing. A beer bottle bounced off Draco's arm and smashed when it hit the floor. "Ow! Let's get out of here," he whispered urgently, rubbing his shoulder and looking around. "Where's Severus?"

Lucius didn't dare try speaking again. Touching the wand in his pocket, he discreetly conjured a piece of parchment in his son's lap and the words _'he's not here'_ wrote themselves across it. Draco gave him a very good impression of Narcissa's Deeply Disappointed glare. Had they been standing up, it would have made Lucius shuffle his feet. He cleared the parchment and made it read _'I'm not misbehaving'._

"I hope not," Draco shook his head disapprovingly. "Anyway, we can talk later, when we're safely home."

By the time they picked their way awkwardly through the hostile bodies, protected from further assault by a subtle shielding charm, the Eagle had become a disaster zone. When they had put a few hundreds yards between themselves and the burgeoning brawl, they stopped and Draco took a better look at his father's jaw by the light of a street lamp.

"Definitely dislocated," he said. The parchment had been lost somewhere in the confusion so Lucius created another.

'_Can you fix it?'_

"Very easily, but we'll need to find a sobering potion first."

'_I'm not very dunk...drunk'_

"Not for you, for me! I'll be struck off if I attempt delicate spellwork when pissed, we have to sign all sorts of agreements when we qualify," he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped away some blood that Lucius hadn't known he was dribbling. "Severus is bound to have something. Let's get back to yours and sort this out."

'_No!'_

"What?"

_'I don't want him to know I was in there. Not because I was doing anything untoward, but…'_

"But what?" Draco was looking uncannily like Narcissa again, frowning disapprovingly even as he held him up.

_'Can't we go back to your flat?'_

"No. You remember those South African medi-witches who are here on a 12 month exchange scheme? They go back tomorrow and there's a huge leaving party in St Mungos' staff quarters tonight. I left at midnight when things were beginning to get out of hand - Merlin knows what's happened since then. My flat has probably been burned out or filled with vomiting student healers. I'll take you home."

_'Don't, please. I don't want him to see me like this. Isn't there anywhere else we can get a sobering potion?'_

"Well," Draco hesitated.

'_Please,'_ scribbled Lucius.

xxxxxxx

Narcissa was a light sleeper. Too many years of subconsciously awaiting the late-night arrival of an auror raiding party or the Dark Lord, who kept the hours one would expect of a sinister megalomaniac, meant that the slightest sound still woke her.

She rolled over and briefly cancelled the Muffilato spell on Arthur, just to make sure he was all right. When a noise not dissimilar in tone and volume to an erumpent in the rutting season vibrated all the bottles of cosmetics on her dressing table, she knew she could safely replace the charm.

From the kitchen, there was the sound of a chair being scraped backwards, so it must have been a slight change in the wards which had awoken her. One of the Weasley boys must have felt the need to come home to the Burrow, or perhaps Harry, who tended to come and stay when he was feeling drained and in need of homely things like rhubarb and custard. She knew she was less of a comfort than Molly had been, but she tried her best and he seemed pathetically grateful for anything she tried to do for him.

If it was Harry downstairs, he might like some of the quiche left over from her early pre-opera supper. Or he might like some hot chocolate before bed. Even though he was very good at cooking, for some reason he was hopeless at making hot chocolate. There was an element of little-lost-orphan about Harry which made Narcissa itch to spoil him - or perhaps it had more to do with her gratitude that he had dispatched the Dark Lord before her son had been killed for taking the other side. Whatever the reason, without further consideration for the late hour or the lack of prior notification she pulled on her dressing gown and padded downstairs to see if there was anything she could do for the boy.

She was so set on the idea of Harry being her late night visitor, that she gave a little gasp of surprise on finding her ex-husband and their son rummaging through the Weasley home potions kit on the kitchen table.

"Sorry, Mum," said Draco sheepishly. "We didn't mean to wake you."

Lucius stared at her, his face oddly lopsided and his mouth hanging open.

"What happened?" she hurried forward.

"I just need to put Dad's dislocated jaw back, but I was a bit drunk. I've had the last of your sobering potion, sorry. I'll replace it tomorrow."

"Don't worry about that. You're to treat this house as your home, as I've told you enough times," she bent over to get a better look at Lucius and was assailed by a smell which stirred things in the more distant parts of her memory. "You smell of…!" she began to exclaim, then whipped her head around to Draco and sniffed again. "You both do!"

Draco sniffed at his shirt sleeve.

"Smell of what?" he asked, at a loss to understand the look of growing disbelief on his mother's face. Narcissa struggled to articulate the swirl of emotion created inside her by the unexpected waft from the Old Days, especially as she hadn't even known at the time what exactly it was that her husband came home in the early hours smelling of.

"…Infidelity?" she hazarded at last.

Lucius stared miserably at the floorboards underneath the kitchen table, wondering if he could succumb to the animal instinct which was suggesting he crawl into the safe dark space and hide. The intense odour of sweat, beer and tobacco used to be part of the whole exhilarating dirty experience he needed so desperately. He had never imagined that his wife noticed anything.

When pain coursed through his jaw and head for the second time that evening his first thought was that Draco had given him a much-deserved slap. He cringed guiltily in his seat.

"All fixed," Draco said evenly, wearing an expression so absolutely neutral it must have been learned from Snape. "Can you open wide for me? Say 'ahh'?" Lucius worked his mouth for a second, then beamed as he realised that rather than being angry at the reminder of Lucius' betrayal of his family, the amazing young man had healed him.

"Thank you," he breathed, very carefully.

"Glad to be of help," Draco said briskly, every inch the capable Healer. "Now, I should be going."

Narcissa's maternal pride at the magnitude of her son's skill eclipsed all feelings about the past at a stroke. Whatever wrong Lucius had done back then, the important thing was that Draco had come through the war, not only alive, but with the respect of some unlikely people for having been able to override the beliefs his father had drilled into him. With subtle guidance from Severus, he had chosen the harder path over the easier and joined the side who despised him, leading most of his friends in the terrible and dangerous split from their families.

Narcissa still could hardly imagine the amount of courage it had taken those teenagers to abandon all they held dear and walk into the den of Gryffindor lions. Many had surely known that doing so would mean they never saw their parents again. Draco always made light of the 24 hour discussion undertaken by Vincent, Gregory, Millicent, Theodore, Blaise and Pansy which had culminated in his weary delivery of the unlikely rallying cry of: "Well, I'm buggered if I'm going to crawl on my knees every day in front of that psychopath, just for the sake of a few mudbloods." Narcissa knew that despite the casual way he spoke about that fateful day and night, the weight of their choice must have been terrible.

She laid a hand on the shoulder of her amazing grown-up son and swallowed the lump in her throat. "It's all right," she said. "Your father and I aren't going to fight, there's no need to leave."

"Mum," he darted an incredulous smirk at each of his parents. "Pleasant as it is to have the family together again, it's almost three in the morning and I am going home."

Thank you, Draco," Lucius stood slowly, still somewhat wobbly and rather tipsy. He shook the young man's hand solemnly.

"We should have dinner," said Narcissa suddenly. Lucius and Draco stared at her. She fought a strange urge, either originating from watching the Weasleys or some essence of Molly still lingering in her kitchen, to bop them both softly on the side of the head. "Not now! One night when we are all free. We should try and have a family dinner with just the three of us. If you'd like to, of course," she added on seeing the uncertain way Draco licked at his lower lip.

There was silence for a minute while Draco inspected his fingernails, Narcissa held her breath and Lucius wondered yet again how he had managed to make such a monumental cock-up of his life that he couldn't even remember the last time he had spent any time alone with his wife and son. Ex-wife, his drunken brain corrected.

"I'll check my work rota," he gave them the non-committal response before stepping into the fireplace. "Night."

Left alone with Narcissa, Lucius found that he was exhausted, his jaw and neck were sore and he wanted to be safely in bed next to Severus. Not knowing what to say, he was glad when she stopped staring blankly at the dark space from where Draco had just disappeared and turned to him in puzzlement.

"How long has he had his ears pierced?" She asked.

Lucius blinked.

"Has he?"

"Yes," she didn't roll her eyes, but a nuance of her voice suggested the action.

"I didn't notice," Lucius sat back down again, trying to remember. He hadn't looked closely at Draco that evening - it had been dark in the Eagle and then the pain had made it hard to concentrate on anything other than stopping his drunken tongue saying anything too insensitive during the unexpected family reunion in the Burrow's kitchen.

"Pearls," she said, softer now, unconsciously tightening the cord of her dressing gown.

"What, _both_ ears?"

Until that moment, it had not occurred to Lucius to wonder why Draco had been in that particular pub. You didn't have to be gay to get into the Eagle, but it was hard to imagine why anyone who wasn't would bother. He wondered what significance the earring held. When he had been younger, some muggle men thought it hip to wear one stud irrespective of their sexuality, but only women ever wore two. Perhaps two were fashionable now, although he hadn't noticed other men doing the same, and surely only girls wore pearls in their ears? He must truly be an old fart not to understand.

Narcissa was staring at nothing again, so he gently worked his jaw a little more and broke the silence.

"He's not necessarily queer, you know," Lucius began. "It might be…"

"No, Lucius," she said sharply. "If Draco wants to speak to me about his personal life then I will be delighted to discuss it with him, but I won't sit gossiping with you about it. He's my son and I just want him to be happy."

"So do I," said Lucius plaintively. "Believe me, there is nothing I want more than for him to be happy. I was the one who ruined his life in the first place so I am willing him to do well. He's doing a brilliant job of making his way in the world but he doesn't seem to get much enjoyment out of anything. He's so serious."

Eyes heavy with sleep and without her make up, Naricssa suddenly looked much older than he had seen her look before. As she sat down next to him at the table, some of her joints clicked.

"I really don't want to talk about this," she smiled ruefully at him and waved her wand at the kettle, which began to gently steam. "Please. Humour me."

"Sorry," he sighed.

The water boiled and they drank tea without speaking, both absorbed in different thoughts of past, present and future.

"By the way, thank you for helping out when Severus, er, got his shock the other day," said Lucius, eventually.

"Oh, you're welcome," she replied cautiously. "Did you have any luck?"

"Yes, thanks," he shook his head dismissively. "It's all tied up now. There's really no need to spend any more time on the matter." She swirled the dregs around in her cup, wondering what she should say.

"So you found out the truth too, did you?" she said quickly, biting her lip.

Lucius stared at her, horrified by the use to the word "too." Of course a witch as clever and intuitive as Narcissa would have found out that Hagrid was really Severus' father! He swallowed, sad for Severus, who would surely want as few people as possible to know about his inhuman bloodline. At least they need never fear Narcissa's indiscretion. She had kept hundreds of important secrets throughout her life, as a Black and as a Malfoy - probably one or two as a Weasley as well, for no family was completely free of darkness.

"Yes," he told her.

"Please don't tell Arthur!" she shot back at him immediately, looking on the verge of tears. "I think it might upset him. Please tell me you won't!"

Extremely confused, Lucius' eyes wandered to the ceiling, where upstairs, Arthur Weasley was probably fast asleep. He had never much liked Weasley, considering him to be a scruffy oaf and a good deal too proud of his fertility, but in this strange new world he did his best to get along with the man, for the sake of Severus, who worked with him, of Narcissa, who clearly yet inexplicably adored him and of Draco, who made great efforts to befriend his stepfather and the innumerable ginger brood. There was no reason that he could think of which could make Narcissa so fearful of her husband finding out that Severus was one-quarter giant. He decided to risk being ungallant by prying into things which weren't strictly his business.

"Why not?"

xxxxxxx

"Snape!"

Severus' neck made a sound like a broomstick splitting as his head jerked up from its sleeping position on his chest. The reason why every bone in his body ached was clearly due to him having slept in the armchair. The reason he had slept in the armchair he couldn't quite recall. His face twisted into a sneer brought about by the twin irritations of an acute ache in the area of his ribs where Bellatrix had tried to rip his lungs out years before, and the sight of Alastor Moody's face in his fireplace in the early hours of the morning.

"What?" he snarled.

"Cheerful and polite as always, I see," Moody snarled back.

"I could never aspire to your level of charm, Mad-eye," Snape hit back, curling the left side of his top lip and tucking his hair behind his ears so he could rub the sleep from his face prior to applying his brain to whatever task Moody had decided to disturb him for.

The hostility in Moody's face gave way to interest for a moment. He sucked his teeth and his mad eye whirled in its orbit.

"Do you know, I sometimes forget."

Snape began working his stiff muscles with every sign of irritability.

"Surely not," he hissed. "The great and infallible Alastor Moody, losing his marbles?"

"Not yet," said Mad-eye, with a rare half-smile, his habitual menace seeming to have evaporated. "I sometimes forget that you're your mother's son."

Halfway through a laborious multi-limb stretch, Snape abruptly pulled his arms and legs back in tight to his body, glaring at his visitor with suspicion.

"What?" he rapped out, for the second time in the half minute he had been awake.

"Now your hair's longer you put it back just like she did. That and her lopsided sneer, which you just kindly demonstrated," he pursed his lips, "Reminded me that you're not the first Snape to irritate the hell out of me."

Swallowing carefully, ever suspicious of a trick or trap when in the presence of this wizard, despite having now been his official ally for more years than they had been foes, Severus cast about in his mind for a clue to what Moody what getting at.

"You did not know my mother," he said accusingly.

"I did," contradicted Moody.

"You weren't at school with her. You're older," Snape realised that he was gripping the arms of the chair so hard his fingers were making dents in the upholstery. He tried to subtly relax them as his mind raced.

"I knew her after she left Hogwarts." Freaking out Snape was something Moody aspired to but rarely achieved, so he savoured every blissful nuance of alarm in his face and manner. At last, he had fulfilled the ambition of many years and had him looking positively terrified, although he was trying very hard to conceal it.

After the curious incident surrounding Snape's DNA, Shacklebolt had hinted to Alastor that Eileen Snape had used Legitimising Potion on her unborn child.

He wondered how much the brat had found out. Could he know the truth? Surely that would have been hidden too well to have been uncovered already, when such great trouble had been put into concealing it? Moody doubted that Snape, for all his cunning and blade-sharpness, could possibly unravel this particular mystery.

With effort, Severus was able to push away his panic and resume a professional countenance. In addition to the disturbing implications of what Moody was saying about his mother, he now remembered the reason why he had been asleep in the armchair.

"Delightful as it is to be chatting with you," he paused in his sarcastic drawl to glance at the clock, "At a quarter past three in the morning, may I enquire as to the reason for your call?"

_Where the hell was Lucius?!_ Had Moody come to bring him bad news? Surely if he knew something dreadful had happened, Moody wouldn't be wasting time like this? Lucius had been behaving rather oddly all evening and then instead of returning home had disappeared. Severus was better placed in his job than most wizards to remember that the war had only ended comparatively recently - that there was still danger lurking in the shadows, with criminals still on the loose and cursed objects still risking harm to ordinary people. As a Death Eater, Lucius had made countless enemies, then still more through having avoided harm during the most lethal times while he was safely inside Azkaban. Plenty of people wished him ill. Then of course, one could not forget those on both sides who resented Snape for having changed his colours and then achieved great things. Attacking his lover could be a way of striking at him.

"Johnson told me you put her in charge of Operation Offence just now," teasing over for the time being, Moody returned to his habitual gruffness.

Snape closed his eyes for a split second out of relief. This was a routine work-related argument in the making, not a transmission of bad news. Unfortunately, that meant he was no closer to discovering the whereabouts of the errant boyfriend, curse him.

"I did," nodded Snape, trying to concentrate on the matter in hand rather than give Moody the satisfaction of any further emotional display.

"You shouldn't have. She's too young."

"That's not true," Snape folded his arms across his chest, more confident battling Moody on familiar ground once more. "Angelina is perfectly competent. I always select the best person for any job, as you know. I would have thought that given the events of the past ten years, the younger members of wizarding society have proven their worth time and again."

"Don't give me that press-conference crap! This is a very subtle operation…"

The floo connection flickered and a faint yellow glow appeared around the mantelpiece. Mad-eye paused.

"Incoming visitor?" he asked.

"Yes," Snape swallowed, crossing his fingers in the hope that it was Lucius returning. "One with full security clearance. They've been diverted to the dining room fireplace."

For a few agonising seconds, Snape had to listen calmly to footsteps in the dining room, then to voices as the house elf greeted the new arrival.

"Expecting guests at this hour?" leered Moody, eyeing his agitation with interest. Snape thought about formulating a reply but was spared the trouble by the sound of a crash - probably caused by someone knocking over the pointless ornamental table in the corridor - and then Lucius' voice said "bugger."

Snape allowed himself a lightning-fast grin of happiness before tearing into the jugular of Moody's argument, killing it as fast as he could in order to get rid of him and see if Lucius was all right.

xxxxxxx

1958

_"Expelliarmus!"_

"Eeeek! Ow!"

"Snape!"

"Piss off, Moody!"

"You're not even trying, Snape!" spat Moody.

"Get splinched, you creep!" screamed Eileen, picking her aching body up off the floor for about the eighth time.

"You need to concentrate," he instructed grimly. "You have to learn how to duel properly. This business isn't all about afternoon tea and cucumber sandwiches at Malfoy Manor."

Eileen flushed, furious. She had very much enjoyed her time chatting to Abraxas Malfoy in his drawing room and had been proud of herself for having succeeded in infiltrating his world so easily.

"Actually, the whole reason Albus wanted me to be his spy was _because_ I can take tea at Malfoy Manor. I may be crap at defensive spells but you have no idea which fork to used in a civilised gathering so you do the fighting and leave me do the delicate work!"

"You're really not doing anything to convince me you're not a slow-witted, spoiled little princess," snarled Moody, his thick dark blonde hair seeming to stand up taller on his head the angrier he became, like some sort of crested bird. "Albus asked me to teach you this stuff because of the danger you're putting yourself in. You're meddling with things that you are clearly too stupid to understand and I wish you'd bloody well make an effort, because I don't want to be the one to have to tell Dumbledore his youngest spy got cursed into tiny pieces by dangerous wizards who were better at wand-wielding than her!"

"Am I really?" Eileen didn't have the energy to sustain her own anger after an hour of being knocked off her feet by the ferocious auror. She limped to the table and poured water into one of the two shatterproof glasses, deliberately overruling her manners by not filling the other one for him. "Really Albus' youngest spy?"

He stomped over and jerked the jug so hard that some water went into the spare glass but most spilled onto the floor. Taking a long swig, he appeared to ruminate as he swilled the drink around his mouth before spitting it out.

"You are the youngest spy to know that they are one," he answered slowly.

Digesting this, she nodded. Albus Dumbledore probably was ruthless enough to subtly use people's own children against them. What a grim world they lived in. The older magical generations loved to recount stories of the hardships they had suffered during the Grindelwald war, just as the muggles's favourite topic seemed to be how awful - yet also how much fun - the muggle Second World War had been. She hoped that history would not be so cruel as to repeat itself so soon. Not when on the surface, everything was so quiet and peaceful.

"This deadly danger I'm supposed to be in," Eileen tucked her hair behind her ears as she stared searchingly at Moody. "Who's behind it?"

Grunting, he did a few stretches with his ankles and ignored the question, deep brown eyes looking everywhere but at her.

"You're trying to teach me to look out for myself, but how can I do that when I don't know where the threat comes from?" She walked over to him and stood directly in his eyeline. "Exactly who am I risking my life to thwart? And don't you dare sneer at me because that's not a silly girl's question, Auror Moody."

They stared at one another for a tense moment, neither apparently capable of moving away, so close that he could feel the wind of her deep, tired breaths and she could see the many paler lines of skin on his face where his skill at duelling had saved his life if not his looks. Moody was probably the toughest person Eileen had ever met, she realised for the first time since crossing paths with him. Perhaps she should try to learn some of the things he had to teach.

But that didn't mean she had to let him win. She carried on glaring. He looked away first.

"I'm not allowed to talk about this," he said quietly. "You'd better go and see Albus."

"I will," she said.

Three seconds later, she sensed rather than saw his wand arm move so was ready to yell _"protego!"_ just as he shouted _"expelliarmus!"_

Eileen beamed as the spell bounced off her shield and he gave the curtest of nods in acknowledgement.

"Well, well. Perhaps you're not completely hopeless after all. Now, again!"

_"Expelliarmus!"_

But this time, it was Alastor Moody who flew backwards and landed gracelessly on his arse.

xxxxxxx


	16. Chapter 16

Apology: It has been months since I updated this and I'm very very sorry. Life has been busy and inspiration has been elusive. Thanks so much for being so patient. I really appreciate all the reviews so far, you've been very kind. x

Recap 2007: Severus (now Head of Magical Law Enforcement) has discovered that Tobias Snape was not his father. When he investigated, he discovered that Abraxas Malfoy bought his mother a very expensive necklace as a present and concluded it must have been a love token. The idea of Lucius being his half-brother alarms him but he doesn't want to lose their relationship so says nothing.

Lucius (fashionable interior decorator and ex-Azkaban inmate) went to Hogwarts and spoke to Eileen's ex-classmate Hagrid, concluding that they had been more than just good friends. He says nothing, thinking that it's a bit gross.

Narcissa (Ministry archivist and happily married to Arthur Weasley) discovered that Eileen and Arthur's flirty father Septimus spent a lot of time together too…

Recap 1958: Eileen is 19 years old, married to Toby, spying on Abraxas for Dumbledore, working closely with Moody and Septimus and searching for some kind of meaning to her confused life.

Disclaimer:JK Rowling's idea, not mine. I'm making no profit and intending no disrespect by wittering on like this.

1958

"He's a fine young wizard, Abraxas," Tom Riddle rested his hands on the rail of Lucius' cot and gazed down at the little boy, beautiful and innocent in sleep.

"I know," said Abraxas. "I'm very lucky to have such a son."

"Indeed. He has a glorious future ahead of him, with his looks, his intelligence and, of course, his impeccable bloodline."

"But no mother," Abraxas had been a widower for three days and was now an expert in saying the right thing to each one of the hundreds of mourners who had poured though the fireplaces of the Manor. Riddle had arrived at midnight, after the last of the vultures had left and it had been a relief to unbutton his heavy mourning robes and raise a glass or several in honour of the late Lucretia in the sole company of his old friend. Despite the length of their association, neither man lowered his guard entirely in the presence of the other - simple Slytherin common sense meant that each preserved a veneer over his true feelings - yet it had still raised Malfoy's spirits to have Riddle with him.

"For now," said Tom quietly.

"Sorry?" Abraxas had lost the conversation due to his musings.

"Your son is without a mother for the present time," he explained smoothly.

"Oh, honestly, old chap. This is hardly the time to be discussing re-marriage!" exclaimed Abraxas.

"Forgive me," not sounding in the least bit contrite, Riddle continued. "But a great wizard such as yourself requires a wife and more pure-blooded children. One must bury the past and begin looking to the future; do be sensible."

"I shall begin looking once the proper period of time has elapsed, if that pleases you," he led his friend out of the nursery and out onto the landing. "Now, will we have another drink or shall I show you to your bed?"

"I can't stay, I'm afraid," Riddle allowed a hint of annoyance to cross his handsome face. "I'm not supposed to be in the country and with your house as busy as King's Cross Station I can't risk being seen here. I'm counting on you to keep the network up and running until I can come back and do it myself in a more permanent way. Incidentally, what has been done about that awful Mabberly?"

"We've made it clear to her that if she continues to speak publicly in favour of making it legal for the muggle relatives of mudbloods to enter Diagon Alley, there will be serious consequences," explained Abraxas. "We've tried everything. Incentives, then suggestions and I understand from young Rookwood that menaces are having no effect either."

"She's dangerous. Such a charismatic personality is capable of making too many people listen. Why can't the fools see that her proposals will officially violate the purity of the magical world forever?!" He shuddered visibly. "It's enough to turn the stomach."

"It's incomprehensible. Of course, Dumbledore is a great friend and has given tentative support to the campaign…"

"Urgh. That heinous old man haunts me at every turn!" Tom became animated as he always did at the mention of the name and his long hands clutched viciously as the banister rail.

Abraxas looked away to hide his slight embarrassment at the venom his friend could still not master and caught the eye of the painting of Matilda de Malfoy, who raised an eyebrow and looked Tom up and down disdainfully. Abraxas ignored her and broached the most sensitive of topics carefully.

"You still believe that he's watching you, then?"

Riddle looked up sharply.

"I suppose you think I'm crazy?"

There was a huff of agreement from Lady Matilda, which fortunately went unnoticed. Malfoy turned and leaned on the rail with both elbows, gazing thoughtfully down at the great echoing entrance hall below.

"No. That man is capable of anything. If you prefer to work covertly until he has the grace to die of old age then I can't blame you in the least."

"I can't openly move into politics until I'm ready," sighed Tom, calming a little. "We're still very young and this game is commanded by the very old; I don't care to be seen growing up in the public eye and have the fossils on the Wizengamot mocking what they will call my youthful misdemeanours. When my great-uncle dies I'll inherit his title and be more of a force to be reckoned with, especially once Dumbledore falls off his perch. Until then, we must keep our budding revolution underground, stir up dissent where we can and make sure the question of blood-purity is always a hot topic."

This titled old uncle who lived on the Continent was something Tom had begun referring to over the last few months, although he never mentioned having any family when they were at Hogwarts. If pressed, he admitted to being the child of a very powerful couple who had been killed while undertaking a top-secret mission for the Ministry out in a far corner of the Empire, the details of which could not be discussed for reasons of international diplomacy. Abraxas wondered what Tom's future title would be. It was very rare for a wizard to rank alongside muggle aristocracy in these days of segregation of the two worlds, although historically, back in the days of Lady Matilda for example, certain monarchs had worked closely with magical families and had rewarded their efforts with dukedoms and knighthoods.

He had intended to lead the conversation around to why by Merlin's beard they had been discussing Abraxas' second marriage when Tom had not yet undergone a first, and how it was about time he thought about _that_, when a small movement made him turn around.

"What are you doing out of your bed, Lucius?" he folded his arms across his chest disapprovingly and looked down at his son. Lucius stared wide-eyed at Riddle and sucked his thumb without replying. "Lucius, this is…" he began to introduce Tom, who only came to visit late at night after the child was asleep, but Tom put a hand on his arm and shook his head.

"Don't. He's a bit too small to be discreet, wouldn't you say?" he murmured.

"I'm _big_!" huffed Lucius, placing his fists on his hips in annoyance at being referred to as small. "Mrs Snape said so!"

There was another disapproving noise from Matilda's portrait in the pause while Riddle was racking his brains for an idea about how he came to recognise the name and Abraxas formulated a quick excuse. Oblivious to his faux-pas, Lucius continued.

"She says I'm big and I'm a good boy! And she showed me tadpoles. I like Mrs Snape."

"Who is Mrs Snape, Lucius?" asked Tom gently, casting a calculating sideways look at his friend.

xxx

Alone in the library the following day, Abraxas wondered what on earth he was doing, allowing a near-stranger who also happened to be a blood-traitor loose in his house. He had given Tom the vaguest hint that he intended to make Eileen his mistress at some point in the future, although the censoring presence of little Lucius meant that he would easily be able to retract the implication and claim the thought never entered his head.

His fondness for Eileen Snape, Prince, as she had been when a spotty youngster worthy of his condescension only as a daughter of a noble house, was something which confused him. It was not simply Lucius' wild adoration of her which meant that she received invitations to the Manor at least twice a week. For a man not given to cultivating uninterested alliances, it was odd that he found the presence of this shabbily dressed woman, a near-exile from magical society so appealing. The quick excuse of future sexual relations which he had invented to allay any curiosity on Riddle's part had been an outright lie. Eileen was not a beauty and did not attract him in that way. Besides, Abraxas' other reflexive answer to his friend's probing that night had also been a lie. He would never remarry.

Lucretia's hold over him would last his lifetime, he knew with an almost prophetic certainty. Their unwise union had caused a great deal of upset in pureblood circles, given that she had been doomed to an early death by Grindelwald's curse since before her birth and everyone knew there could be no Happy Ever After for the lovers. And love her, he had, and did, and always would. Tom and any other critics would learn in time that he would uphold his duty to his class and his name in every other aspect of his life, but he would not attempt to replace Lucretia either officially or furtively. Eileen would be useful as a confidant for him and as a woman's influence on Lucius, nothing more.

Abraxas flicked through the magical atlas until he found the place he was looking for. He was making a note of the apparition coordinates to give to Rookwood when an elf announced the arrival of the Minister in the entrance hall and he hurried away.

"Let's read the one about the dragon!" Luicus demanded, tugging on Eileen's hand as they rounded the corner into the room his father had left just seconds earlier.

"Oh, not again, sweetheart!" She wondered how many other spies throughout history had done their duty by reading the 'Singe the Silly Dragon' nine times in one day.

"Yes, again!" squealed Lucius, marching masterfully towards the low brightly-painted shelves made especially for holding the reading matter of junior Malfoys. "With all the noises!"

"Very well," she sighed. "As long as you choose one other story to read afterwards." She leaned back against the map table as the child pulled all the books off the shelf and spread them out on the floor, frowning as he tried to find one which came close to being as wonderful as 'Singe the Silly Dragon'. It took him a long time and she let her attention wander to the big book lying open on the table.

The magical atlas was turned to a page of Dartmoor which seemed to be devoid of all human inhabitation except for an isolated farm labelled Mabberly Lodge. The apparition coordinates had been copied onto a scrap of parchment in Malfoy's handwriting.

Eileen memorised them quickly. It was unlikely that the location would be of use to Albus, but her job was to tell him everything she could learn and let him decide.

"Got it!" trilled Lucius happily, looking positively cherubic with his neat blonde hair and big eyes.

"Well done," Eileen's indulgent smile faltered only slightly on being handed a somewhat sticky copy of 'Singe the Silly Dragon Makes a Friend.'

2007

Lucius had thrown off his clothes and instructed Peggy to get rid of their stale smell at any cost, then dived into the shower and scrubbed himself all over, starting with his hair, where the stink used to cling most tenaciously. Having just discovered that Narcissa had always known when he had been misbehaving, he was determined not to give Severus any cause to worry about where he had been - not that he had any intention of deceiving him in the future or any guilty secret to hide this evening. Nevertheless, the scent of sin was not something he wanted to bring to the bedroom they shared.

The hot water felt marvellous on his skin as it cleansed him from the taint of the Eagle and everything he used to do there. It was tempting to stand under the stream for a long time and apply some of his exfoliating potion for a really deep clean, but he knew how late it was. The sooner he could slip quietly into bed without waking his sleeping lover, the better. He turned off the water and opened the door to the shower cubicle.

"Are you all right?"

Dripping and naked, Lucius started on seeing Severus leaning against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. Despite his residual drunkenness and the clouds of steam in the bathroom, Lucius could see the tiredness in the lines on is forehead and that he was still wearing that day's clothes. He had not yet slept.

"Are you?" Lucius countered. "They called you away to deal with something important. Was it…?"

"Nothing. The usual," he shrugged. "Where have you been and why were you in the shower for twenty-five minutes at this time of night?"

"I was with Draco," Lucius half-truthed. Glumly he noted that only moments before he had been vowing never to deceive Severus, yet already he had fallen into automatic lying. He tried to convince himself it was for Severus' own good, to avoid causing him anxiety about indiscretions he hadn't even wanted to commit in that vile place. "We talked. Not much, but it was a start. Then we talked with Narcissa too."

Snape twitched fractionally at the sound of the name but thought of Draco's wellbeing and quashed his irrationality.

"You're very late," he stated calmly.

"It was late when we finished eating," Lucius reasoned.

"Why were you washing?"

"Old memories," yet more deceitful truths tumbled from his mouth. He padded out of the shower and reached for a towel when there was a pause in the soft interrogation.

"You won't wash those away with soap and water," Severus noted with great empathy and Lucius wanted to slap his own face on hearing the suggestion of weariness underlying the response. There was some force determined to make him cause pain for the man he loved that night, but at least this upset was over events rooted in the past, not threatening the future. "I was worried about you," the quiet admission added another pang of the guilt.

"I'm fine," Lucius smiled. "I'm very sorry, darling. I lost track of the time. It won't happen again."

Accepting this, Severus uncrossed his arms and began preparing for bed. The small rituals of cleaning teeth and undressing were a relief after the tension and Lucius enjoyed the pleasant domesticity of them until they were in bed and putting out the lights and the gentle questioning began again.

"Didn't you like the restaurant?"

"I loved it!" Lucius rolled against Snape and snuggled. "What makes you think I didn't?"

"You were…" the politician struggled for the right words, wondering whether it had been a mistake to broach the subject. "That is, you seemed rather on edge throughout the meal. Was it because you used to go there with your wife? I was not aware of that, incidentally."

The evening had been so eventful with family matters, guilt, lies and a broken jaw, he had almost forgotten his disappointment over the botched marriage proposal. This was probably not the best time to mention it.

"I had a wonderful evening," he yawned, trying to end conversation for what remained of the night. "The meal was perfect and it was a delightful surprise. Thank you," he located Severus' cheek in the dark and kissed it.

xxx

Lucius passed the day in a state of distraction. He flooed to one of his favourite fabric suppliers in Galway and together they examined every sample she possessed in the purple spectrum with a view to gleaning some hint of inspiration for taking McGonagall's kitchen in a less horrifying direction than it was currently headed. Unfortunately, not even two hours of cheerfully deriding the most difficult clients they had each encountered managed to distract him from his concerns about Severus.

When he had concluded that Hagrid was Severus' natural father, he had assumed that his partner thought the same thing. They had never discussed their findings nor mentioned the matter since, so there was no way of knowing whether the other man's enquiries had led him to the half-giant or in the same direction as Narcissa's.

Was it possible that Severus was a Weasley? He knew that Septimus had been a lifelong flirt, despite being an invalid for his later years. Had Eileen Snape fallen victim to the charms of red hair and freckles just as Narcissa had, years later?

Hating the idea of raking up issues which were better left alone, he realised that they were going to have to _talk._

That evening, Lucius was sitting at his desk, staring blankly at the sketches of McGonagall's cottage strewn over every flat surface and twirling his ponytail around his finger. The unseeing grey gaze passed over neatly pencilled suggestions for dining-rooms, watercolour designs for cosy bedrooms, their plaid curtains blowing charmingly in an imaginary breeze and a lovely, welcoming entrance hall mocked up with swatches of real fabrics and even featuring his drawing of the hideous erumpent's foot umbrella stand which the old bag was inexplicably attached to. He could usually muster endless enthusiasm for his job - being paid for replacing the vile and the tasteless with beauty of his own design was yet another unlikely blessing of this amazing new life - but the weight of his thoughts had sunk all inspiration for the moment. It was difficult to visualise a ceiling rose with a rampant griffin motif when concern for Draco and Severus made him stare listlessly into space.

A soft tap on the doorframe brought him back to the present and he turned to see Severus standing watching him with a neutral expression.

"How long have you been there?" asked Lucius, swiftly slipping the elastic band out of his hair and smoothing it down.

"I can go and do some work if you're busy," Snape smiled, touched by the unconscious preening. Until this man entered his life as Significant Other, no one had ever bothered to make themselves neat or more attractive just for him.

"No!" exclaimed Lucius, jumping up. "I'm not doing anything. Can that clock be right? What are you doing here if it's only ten minutes past six?"

"I spotted a chance to leave and took it," he looked apologetic. "I am going to try and cut down my hours. It was lovely having all that time with you over the weekend and I'm sick of certain colleagues taking two hour lunch breaks and three days off per year for grandmothers' funerals. They must learn to pull their weight."

Lucius tried to stifle his grin of joy but only managed to tone it down to a small beam. Instead of whooping at this most pleasing development and sign that Severus was finally putting his lover above his bloody job, he simply asked:

"Three grandmothers?"

"You should see how many times they need to visit the dentiwizard," Snape rolled his eyes with amused annoyance. "Weasley has estimated that banning sweets from Ministry premises would save 500 wizard-hours per year - except of course that would be cancelled out by the hours that would be lost by the ensuing strike."

Lucius thought of Narcissa and her colleagues' obsession with scoffing biscuits and cake throughout the working day. The policy would probably not win its champion much gratitude at work or at home.

The mention of Arthur Weasley brought his father Septimus back into Lucius' head. It was a pity to waste their bonus hours together discussing unpleasant topics, but there was little to be gained from postponement. They wandered through to the lounge, where Peggy had opened the large windows leading onto the balcony so that the room was filled with warm summer air.

"I spoke to Narcissa last night," Lucius plunged in.

"So you said," Severus spelled off his boots and relaxed back in his armchair.

"About the paternity question."

Severus stilled as though stupefied for a few seconds then looked away.

"I'm sorry to bring it up," Lucius leaned forward, craning to try and see his face past the defensive curtain of hair which Snape had allowed to fall between them. When he neither moved nor responded, Lucius was forced to press on. "I just thought you should know that when we were researching clues as to the identity of your real father, she and I drew different conclusions."

"Different?" repeated Snape after a long pause, still making no movement.

"Yes. My investigations led me to believe I had discovered the truth and you appeared to have found out too, so I didn't think it was worth discussing Narcissa's results. Then last night she mentioned a man other than the person I had believed responsible."

There was still no opportunity to assess the impact his words were having by examining Severus' face, but it seemed to Lucius that his chest was rising and falling somewhat more rapidly than before.

"Tell me," he said at last.

Peggy bustled in at that crucial point with a tea tray and began laying out the china, noisily placing the teapot, cups and milk jug down on the glass-topped tables and fussing about the pouring until she detected something strained in the atmosphere and stopped abruptly.

"Thank you, Peggy," said Lucius.

From her position by the side table, she was able to stare directly into Severus' face and did so in the cool way she used to deal with all interactions with her master.

"I trust you are not ill, Master," she asked. "Forgive the impertinence, but you appear rather pale."

"_Thank you,_ Peggy," Lucius reiterated the dismissal, giving her a gentle push in the direction of the door. Refusing to let his lover hide any longer, he moved over and knelt next to his chair so their faces were just a few feet apart. Severus scowled a little at the intrusion but repeated the order regardless:

"Tell me."

"Walburga Black's portrait no longer speaks, so Narcissa visited Kreacher to ask if he remembered anything about your mother," Lucius kept his voice light despite the seriousness of the conversation and spoke without drama. "He told her that Walburga and all her circle were outraged because Eileen was often seen in the company of Septimus Weasley."

Snape's eyes widened with shock.

"That lecher?" He looked scandalised.

"The elf inferred that they were quite inseparable around, um, around the time in question, despite…" the almost professional tone Lucius had been using faltered as Severus' head fell backwards against the back of the chair.

"Despite being married to other people?" Snape finished for him sourly. Lucius nodded and Severus rubbed a hand across his face with a groan. "A Weasley? Oh, dear Merlin!"

He remained so still as he digested the news, Lucius found himself performing a very un-Malfoyesque gesture of helplessness - he poured a fresh cup of tea, added sugar and handed it to Severus.

"Surely you've noticed I don't take sugar?" he grimaced, emerging sharply from his ponderings.

"For the shock," Lucius couldn't remember where he had learned the popular wisdom, but it had seemed like the right thing to do.

"I'll need more than sweet tea to make me accept being one of that mob!" snorted Severus, amusement beginning to flicker in his eyes. "Pass the bloody firewhisky!"

Laughing, Lucius summoned the bottle and measured out a generous slug each. Snape gulped his down and chuckled.

"Severus Weasley," he tried out the name then grabbed for the bottle as though his life depended on it. "Oh, bloody hell!" Lucius accepted the proffered top-up and chortled along with his lover, happy that the serious discussion had dissolved into a kind of resigned dismay.

"Better than Severus Hagrid, at least," he smiled, taking another sip. Severus laughed once, then his joviality turned to confusion.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You know," Lucius began, but stopped as he realised that another mistake had been made. The other wizard was staring at him in with alarm. Not only had he and Narcissa come to different conclusions during their detective mission; Severus must also have been led towards someone else.

"What has Hagrid got to do with any of this?" he demanded.

Lucius put down his glass very deliberately and swallowed away the sourness in his throat. It seemed the hardest part of the conversation was not yet finished after all. He quietly recounted the key points of his meeting with the Hogwarts groundskeeper: Eileen's realisation that she no longer shared the prejudiced views of her housemates, the distance her epiphany had created between her and them and the gradual development of a friendship between the wealthy pure-blooded student and expelled half-giant outcast. Stronger evidence than any of these facts, however, had been the look of fondness in the old man's eyes as he recounted the story.

"You know the great oaf…ahem, the man is incapable of concealing emotion," he sighed. "He was practically glowing with admiration for your mother by the time I left."

Severus was staring into his tumbler as though it was a crystal ball, the fingers of his right hand whiter than usual as they clutched it.

"And did he say…? Did he tell you that they actually…did…actually had…?" Unsurprisingly, he struggled to articulate the idea of Hagrid and Eileen having sex.

"No," Lucius admitted. "So I may have been completely wrong. Please don't panic, love. People don't conceive children by simply being charmingly fond of each other."

For all that these new shocks were disturbing Severus, they were also a tremendous relief. He had attempted to put aside the thought of Abraxas Malfoy being his father since the discovery of the pretty pendant which had been given to his mother, but the thought of being Lucius' brother still horrified him. It ought not to matter - the American professor had been adamant that the Legitimising potion removed all trace of the real father's genes and replaced them with Tobias Snape's, so he was in actual fact fifty per cent Prince and fifty per cent Snape, as he had always been told. A half-blood, just as every other person on earth was half of one thing and half of another. Nothing about his DNA remained Malfoy, yet the feeling of unease had persisted, as though he and Lucius were committing some kind of revolting sin simply by being in the same room.

Displeasing as it was to be linked with the high-spirited ginger-haired brood, or to find that the huge semi-feral friend to all creatures furry and ferocious might have been in love with his small, surly mother, neither option tainted his precious new relationship with the vileness of incest.

"You thought it was Hagrid all this time?" he turned to Lucius, who stared at him quizzically.

"Of course. Didn't you?"

The blooming relief in Snape's heart withered at a stroke. He had assumed that Malfoy had also discovered the link between Eileen and Abraxas. His reassuring comments when the two wizards had their discussion after their investigations - their totally inadequate discussion, as it transpired - had gone some small way towards calming Severus' fears. Lucius had not seemed to care that his lover was really his half-brother, which had kept the worst of the ickyness at bay, for if he could cope with the knowledge and not be revolted, why then ought Severus to be?

It now appeared that Lucius had had no clue about the Malfoy connection.

Which meant that if he found out, he might not be calm about it.

He might yet be horrified enough by the idea to end their relationship.

Pain suddenly flared in his hand and Lucius rushed at him, taking his arm and removing what remained of the whisky glass, now shattered and covered in blood.

"Peggy!" shouted Lucius, when Severus sat staring uncomprehendingly at the mess.

"We have to go and ask Hagrid," he said decisively, over the sound of the two of them fussing with shard-summoning spells and antiseptic potion.

"I don't think you're in a fit state to…" began Lucius in something of a mother hen tone.

"We are leaving this instant," he used his Head of Magical Law Enforcement voice of authority. A frisson of desire visibly shivered through his lover at the sound of it. "We need to know one way or another. Fetch my cloak," he smirked slightly as Lucius' pupils dilated at being given an order in _that voice _before putting down the potion bottle and hurrying away to obey.

If Hagrid confessed to having been involved with Eileen, then they could accept the unpalatable truth and move on. If he did not, well, Septimus Weasley was dead and had no known portrait, so they could lay the blame at his door and also move on. There would be no need to mention Abraxas at all and Lucius could remain his forever.

Simple, really.

So why was his heart trying to pound its way out of his chest?

xxx

Author's note: "Grandmothers' funerals" bit shamelessly stolen from Mr Pratchett, out of admiration. Thanks for reading, guys xx


	17. Chapter 17

Recap:

Severus and Lucius have discovered that since they and Narcissa each drew a different conclusion after pursuing their investigations, they ought to find out once-and-for-all who Snape's real father is/was. To this end, they've gone to speak to the number one suspect, Hagrid.

Eileen has discovered that at 19, she is Dumbledore's youngest active spy. She is multitasking: getting on with her first assignment of keeping an eye on Abraxas, whom the foetal Order of the Phoenix believe to be Up To No Good, while also trying to take care of her new muggle husband, who works very hard to earn their meagre keep. While in the Manor's library with little Lucius, she noticed an apparation atlas open at a certain place and duly reported it to Albus.

Snape's Nightie has recently begun a creative writing evening course in order to try and get up enough confidence to write original fiction and is finding it by turns liberating and terrifying that she is expected to read stuff out in front of actual real-life people. Meep.

…….

2007

_Crack! Crack! Splash!_

Severus and Lucius apparated outside Hogwarts' main gates. Lucius' feet felt horribly cold and as he looked down and saw that he was standing in a deep muddy puddle, a deluge of large icy raindrops sloshed down the back of his neck.

He swore enthusiastically and glared at Snape, who had not only landed on solid ground but was looking dry and poised beneath an impervious spell.

"How did you know it would be pouring with rain?" demanded Lucius accusingly.

"I lived here for a long time," Snape smirked.

"Bloody Scotland," hissed Malfoy, sloshing out of the puddle. He hated puddles.

Despite having been dried off and treated with his own personal impervious spell, he moaned about the cold all the way up the drive and round to Hagrid's hut until finally, rolling his eyes, Snape took off his cloak and gave it to Lucius.

"Better?" he asked with exasperation. Somewhat mollified, Lucius nodded. "Good. Now, why isn't Hagrid answering the door?"

Enquiries up at the castle revealed that the Care of Magical Creatures professor was most likely to be in the pub after a hard day's teaching, so they traipsed into Hogsmeade in silence, each wizard processing his own thoughts. Snape half wished he had never begun investigating the whole business of his real father, since the candidates seemed to have been narrowed down to his lover's father, a massively indiscreet half-giant or one of the blasted Weasleys. Tobias Snape hadn't been a very nice person, but at least no one in the magical world had really known him well enough to pass judgement, aside from the casual anti-muggle prejudice. Now Severus would have to face public discussion on a grand scale if any of the gossips got hold of the news.

There would be hilarity if it turned out to be Hagrid, plus smothering emotion from the man himself as he tried to make up for many years of lost love all in one go. Snape would be lucky if he prised himself out of the initial teary bear-hug within an hour. If it had been Septimus, the Weasleys would probably be shocked at first then try to embrace him as a long-lost member of their clan - he shivered at the thought of suddenly being a little brother, the uncle of countless people, a great-uncle, cousin and a plethora of other titles he had been delightfully free of as a Snape. The Yule festival would be very expensive this year. If the press ever got wind of the Malfoy possibility however, it would probably end his career. Time and his good deeds had cured most people of their revulsion for his past, society had grown tolerant enough of homosexuality to not care about his boyfriend, but the taboo surrounding incest still stuck. It was too strong inside his own head to hope that others would overlook the unpleasantness and he would have to give up everything he had achieved so far and resign from public office.

Not the end of the world, he reflected, of only Lucius would stay with him. He glanced over at the man he had adored for so long, also apparently lost in his own reverie, and wondered how he would react. He might not mind a bit, but Severus could not take the chance of his walking out in disgust, leaving Snape not only unemployed and generally reviled, but broken-hearted too. Whatever happened, no one must ever find out that there was a chance that Abraxas Malfoy had fathered both of the lovers. If that meant keeping secrets from his partner, then so be it.

Lucius forced down his annoyance at having been soaked and almost frozen on a June evening which had been balmy and beautiful down in London. He and Severus had a job to do, so he wrapped his lover's cloak tighter around him for the walk into the village and shoved his hands into the deep pockets to keep them warm.

They had been marching in silence for a few minutes when Lucius began to fiddle with some of the objects in the Snape's pockets, pondering how on earth he ought to react to whatever Hagrid was going to reveal. Above all, he must be supportive of Severus and try to identify how he _really_ felt about the news, instead of how he acted. He would probably use the inscrutable expression, which….

Lucius' eyes widened very slightly as he realised that inside the right pocket, his hand had been caressing a small box which felt very similar in texture and size to the jeweller's box he had found the previous day containing what was presumably the engagement ring. A look at Severus revealed that he was thinking hard about the upcoming interview. He had probably completely forgotten that he was still carrying the ring around with him. It was difficult for Malfoy not to feel slight irritation that something as important as proposing marriage had slipped Snape's mind, but he fought the selfish thought by remembering that the imminent discovery of one's father's identity could push even the most exciting questions out of a man's head.

His heart beat a little bit faster as he squeezed the box and was glad when they rounded the corner into Hogmeade high street and drew level with the Three Broomsticks, so Snape would become too intent on his task to notice anything amiss with his lover. So intent was he, in fact, that instead of approaching the doorway, Snape strode right past.

"Um, Severus?" Lucius called, thinking that perhaps he had become too lost in thought to realise where they were.

"Not that one," replied Snape cryptically, over his shoulder. Lucius jogged a few steps to catch up.

"What do you mean?"

"Not that pub," said Snape and as if for clarification, the shabby façade of the Hog's Head hoved into view ahead.

"Oh!" Lucius smiled, "Of course. Trust Hagrid to…" then he stopped suddenly, grabbing hold of Snape's arm. "Severus, no! You can't go in there!" Snape shook him off at once, speeding his pace until he reached the doorway.

"Don't be ridiculous. I used to come here all the time, years ago!"

"Yes, but years ago you weren't…!" Lucius' desperate whine was cut off as Snape went through the door. Lucius gulped and followed him, drawing his wand.

The unbelievable sight that greeted him was one he would treasure for the rest of his life. The Head of Magical Law Enforcement stared at the assortment of rogues, thieves, tricksters, double-dealers, dark wizards, murderers, skulkers, sleazebags and general miscreants who filled the room. They stared back.

Nobody moved or breathed. Aberforth Dumbledore stood white-faced behind the bar, looking as though his world had just ended.

_We're going to die_, thought Lucius.

Then, as the initial frozen moment of shock wore off, there was a general raising of hoods, a hunkering down behind tankards; two or three figures tried to slide underneath tables and one brave soul with a wriggling canvas sack made a dash for the rear exit.

"Is this a raid?" asked Aberforth feebly. Snape raised an eyebrow at him, not in the least discomposed, then looked deliberately from Lucius and back to the barman.

"Does it look like a raid?" he asked.

"Looks more like Gay Night," piped up a gruff voice somewhere among the grubby clientele. A few people sniggered. Snape's classroom skills allowed him to easily identify the source of the heckle and he fixed a bright interested gaze on a cloaked man in grey sitting at a table near the stairs. The man visibly shrank as his companions shuffled quickly away from him.

"Does it really, Mr Cattermole?" he asked, with rich, ominous sarcasm.

There was a whimper from Cattermole's neighbour then another two people took advantage of the distraction and charged out the back.

"Good night, Madam Byckerstaff, good night Mr Flint!" Snape called cheerfully after them, prompting more miserable groans and vain attempts at concealment inside the pub. He turned to Lucius and stage-whispered conversationally: "Mr Cattermole is a renowned reconditioner of stolen broomsticks. He's so good at his work I've been meaning to have a chat with him for a while now. Of course, I remember him when he was just a pimple-faced boy, still wetting the bed at the age of thirteen…"

No other MLE chief would have walked away from the Hogshead alive, although one or two particularly inspirational individuals might have been able to hop or slither away with whatever remained of their transfigured body. Snape's bloodless escape was perhaps less remarkable if you remembered that no other Head of Law Enforcement had ever spent 15 years teaching at Hogwarts, getting to know a large selection of the population by name and by juvenile habits; neither had any of his predecessors been actively involved with the bad guys. Not even legendary MLE loose cannon Mad-eye Moody could claim such an in-depth knowledge of the sort of spells which were so dark even the name of them could burn your ears off.

The fact that the sound of Snape's voice in withering mode could still induce terrifying childhood flashbacks in hundreds of grown-up witches and wizards did no harm to his reputation as the country's sternest disciplinarian, either. Nowadays he had the power to do more than take house points and everyone knew it.

To the immense relief of the Hog's Head punters, the sound of flushing heralded Hagrid's emergence from the Gents. Spotting Snape in the doorway, the old man rushed happily towards his former colleague, making a very effective barrier between Snape and the miscreants. There was a stampede of footsteps and a chorus of apparition cracks.

"Where did everyone go?" asked Hagrid, bemused. Snape and Lucius peered round him and noted without surprise that the bar was now empty except for Aberforth, who was glaring and muttering viciously about being ruined.

His indignation quickly drove the three men out into the street, where, although happy to be clear of the seedy joint, Lucius realised that they were now presented with a new problem.

Delicate questions of this nature could not be put to sensitive, emotionally incontinent types like Rubeus Hagrid in any place where his reaction might be observed and give rise to discussion, such as the bustling Three Broomsticks. Nor could they remain on Hogmeade High Street, where his many friends and acquaintances in the village might interrupt. The privacy of Hagrid's home at Hogwarts was several minutes' walk away (Malfoy doubted the wisdom of the under-trained half-giant attempting apparition without a crack magi-medical team being on standby) and Severus was running his fingers along the lightning-bolt shaped scar on his cheek in a way that suggested he was beginning to feel stressed.

Casting around impatiently for a better idea than becoming the least likely gathering of people to ever cross the threshold of Madam Puddifoot's chintzy tearoom, he spotted the Shrieking Shack a little way out of the village, perched on its wooded slope. Mercifully, the rain of earlier had petered out into a bearable drizzle, so an outdoor conference appeared to be the answer.

"Hagrid," he said brightly, as Snape hadn't seemed keen to open proceedings. "Severus and I are anxious to have a private word with you." From deep within the tangled shrubbery of the old groundskeeper's excessive white hair and beard came a look of mingled suspicion and dislike. Hagrid's big head turned towards Snape for confirmation.

"Is that so?" he asked.

"Yes," Snape rediscovered his courage and stopped fidgeting. "If you have a moment, that is."

"Of course," Hagrid smiled at him, ignoring Malfoy's existence completely. "If I can be of help…"

"Capital. Shall we walk up to the shack?" Determined not to be offended by the ill-mannered oaf, Lucius remained polite and cheerful. Then he remembered that the ill-mannered oaf in question stood a rather good chance of being the father of his beloved and in consequence might in a few minutes' time be counted as his own in-law and therefore ought not to be considered an oaf. His previous in-laws, the Blacks, had mostly been ill-mannered or just downright foul, so he already had handy precedents in place for handling that whilst remaining outwardly respectful. He would have to quickly learn some coping mechanism for the oafishness. He fixed a positive expression on his face and indicated the path up the hill, keen to get the bad news over with.

For some reason, Snape had flinched slightly at the mention of the shack, but before Lucius could find a reason why, Hagrid's huge voice was rumbling in a puzzled way.

"What do yer want to go up there for? What's yer game, Malfoy?" He frowned and turned back to Snape again, as though speaking directly to the man he loathed was distasteful. "What's his game?"

Apparently now recovered from whatever shadow had crossed his grave and caused the shudder, Snape answered diplomatically.

"Lucius has spotted a quiet place where we can talk, if that suits you. I imagine the woods up there will smell quite delightful after all the rain."

After a short walk, they arrived at a log beside the puddly path leading up to the derelict house and Snape, deciding either that the spot was secluded enough or that he could bear the tension no longer, spelled dry the layer of dirty moss on the trunk and sat. Lucius gestured for Hagrid to be seated next, earning another wary glare for his manners. The solid wood creaked alarmingly and sank a little further into the ground as his bulk weighed down on it, so Lucius gingerly perched on a clean-looking branch at the far end and pulled Snape's cloak tight around him. Both he and Hagrid looked over expectantly to Snape, who swallowed once then sprang up and began pacing across the wet weeds and the leaf-mulch as he plunged in at the deep end.

"It transpires that Tobias Snape was not my real father," he said bluntly. "Naturally, I would like to discover who my biological father was and as you have admitted to being a friend of my mother around the relevant time, I was hoping that you might have an idea of the man's identity."

Hagrid's face went through a multitude of expressions, beginning with thunderstricken shock and passing through disbelief, alarm and embarrassment before finishing up somewhere near utterly flabbergasted. He made a series of noises as he tried to speak, then cleared his throat and managed a hoarse:

"Really?"

"Was it you?" demanded Snape, Head of Magical Law Enforcement, commencing the interrogation before his suspect had time to recover.

"How's that? Was what me? Hey! How? What? Ooh! Here! You don't think…? You can't actually be suggestin'…that…ooh!" There was a great deal of spluttering. Snape finally stopped pacing and stood perfectly still.

"Was it you, Hagrid?" he repeated, more gently. "Are you my father?"

"Oh, Merlin," the old man leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, then put his face in his huge callused hands. From anyone else, Lucius would have imagined the position to be a ruse to buy time for inventing lies by concealing treacherous facial reactions, but here he had to admit such deception unlikely. Opposite the fallen tree, Snape was still standing motionless and expressionless as the birds sang in the background and big water drops dripped loudly through the foliage around them.

After a few moments of this, Lucius decided he could no longer bear the torment and prompted Hagrid with a nudge.

"Sorry," he straightened up with a heavy sigh and buried his fingers in his immense white beard for a good scratch. "Yeh gave me a bit of a shock there. Brought up one or two memories, sudden-like."

"Yes?" rapped out Lucius desperately when, infuriatingly, he stopped speaking but continued scratching.

"Ah'm not your father, Severus," he admitted. Snape's head fell forward and he emitted a sound somewhere between a sigh and a hum. Lucius' shoulders sagged with relief. "Eileen and I were friends and only friends - there was never nothing…" he paused while gallons of blood rushed to his cheeks and forehead, the only parts not covered by the jungle of white hair, "…nothing like that going on."

Snape felt simultaneously relieved at having crossed this awkward candidate off the list and even more disturbed by the thought of who remained. It was now down to the worrying options of Septimus Weasley and Abraxas Malfoy. _Please be Weasley,_ he found himself begging inwardly, using words he would have died rather than utter just weeks ago, _oh, Merlin, Morgana and anybody else with power over these things, please let me be a Weasley! _He took a hold of himself and forced the tumult inside him to be calm while there was still work to be done.

"Did Mother ever mention anyone to you, Hagrid? Other men, I mean. Do you have any idea as to who my father might have been?" Hagrid screwed his face up with the effort of recollection.

"Well, it's quite hard to say. She never mentioned any _romantic_ activity, like, but she didn't really have any female friends the way most girls do, so she talked about men quite frequently," Lucius' brows rose at that, making Snape glare. Hagrid noticed the exchange and hurried to explain. "No, no, no! She weren't free with herself or nothing! She just never seemed to get on very well with witches. I remember the ones in Slytherin when she was at school being quite a ferocious bunch."

"I understand, thank you," Snape shot another quick dagger at Lucius then turned his full attention back to Hagrid. "Now, assuming that Mother kept her affair with this person a secret, are you able to give us any clues? A name she brought up more often than the others, perhaps? Anyone she appeared particularly close to?"

Extracting his fingers from his beard, Hagrid installed them in the hedgerow of hair atop his head and scratched at that instead. Lucius shoved his hands firmly into the pockets of the borrowed cloak again to physically prevent them from seizing the irritating old man by his big florid nose and trying to shake the answers out of him. Unfortunately, this brought his right hand back into contact with the Caboodle's box containing the engagement ring so he had to pull them out again sharply. Whatever the giant said next might have tremendous bearing on Snape's future and ergo, on Lucius' happiness too, so he could not think just then about the promised security and contentment which lay so unassumingly inside that little box.

"Hagrid?" asked Snape through clenched teeth, his own patience beginning to wear thin.

"I don't want to gossip," frowned the groundskeeper.

"It's not bloody gossip!" burst out Lucius, springing up from his branch. "This is important information and we need to hear it!" Snape put a steadying hand on his elbow and squeezed until he sat down again.

"Well, yes," admitted Hagrid. "It was all such a long time ago, though. I don't want to send you off on wild goose chases by rememberin' things wrong."

"Please," Snape looked into his crinkle-edged eyes appealingly. "This is all terribly difficult for me. I should like to find out who my father was and, as you correctly noted, it was all a long time ago. If you could recall anything, anything at all which might assist us in finding out, I would be extremely grateful."

Examining his dirty fingernails, Hagrid nodded reluctantly.

"All right. It must be proper unsettling for you, having to find all this out. But remember, I'm only talking about people I heard her mention, nothing more. I'm not suggesting anything else."

"Fine!" agreed Lucius readily, trying not to bounce up and down in anticipation. "Just tell us!"

"Septimus Weasley," said the giant reluctantly. "He was a good friend of Eileen's. He had an eye for the ladies, folk said at the time, but they didn't sneak around or act shifty as if they had something to hide. They just used to sit in cafés or walk about together all innocent. There was _talk_ though. You know how it is."

Lucius and Severus exchanged a worried look and thought about Narcissa's report of her chat with Kreacher, Mrs Black's unpleasant ancient house-elf, and of his opinions on the friendship between a married blood-traitor rake and a married blood-traitor muggle-lover. The late Walburga and her ilk had clearly been ready to believe the worst.

"And there was Moody, o' course," continued Hagrid, staring into the middle distance, the effort of recollection furrowing his brow.

Any concerns about Septimus evaporated immediately and Lucius found he could hear the blood pulsing in his ears. Snape had frozen to the spot again, so it was left to Malfoy to repeat the ominous word for clarification purposes.

"Moody?" he asked, in a strangled whisper. "Alastor 'Mad-eye', hard as nails, nerves of steel, vicious old git Moody?"

"Yeah," confirmed Hagrid. "Except he had both eyes back then. Eileen was doing some training with him for a bit. Said she was thinking about applying for the auror training programme once she realised that the world was a rotten, corrupt place and something ought to be done about it. They didn't always get on very well though, often arguing and scoring points off each other, from what I remember."

Snape made no movement while all this startling news tumbled willy-nilly out of Hagrid's mouth. The fact that his mother had almost become an auror was utterly incomprehensible. She had never seemed engaged enough with the wizarding world to care about its Rights and Wrongs, or at least not enough to consider devoting her life to making it a better place. As far as he had known, she had abandoned magical society on her marriage to his fa…to Tobias Snape. This was most unnerving.

Twenty times more unnerving, however, was the most unspeakable development in the story so far. Things he had dreaded only minutes before now looked preferable to the unwelcome possibility now staring him in the face. Rubeus Hagrid, Septimus Weasley and even confounded Abraxas Malfoy would have been far less painful candidates for having fathered him than the idea that it might have been Alastor Moody.

Losing his stoic façade for a second, he grimaced and clenched his fists. _Merlin, no!_

"But," Lucius interrupted his terrifying thoughts with a very sensible question which brought him temporary relief. "You said Eileen and Moody didn't get on. Surely that fact rules him out of the equation?" Snape nodded so hard his teeth rattled, willing this piece of good sense to be true.

"At first they didn't," explained Hagrid. "Then things changed after the accident."

"Changed?" moaned Snape miserably, seeing the straw to which he had clung for a sweet moment disintegrate in his hand.

"Accident?" asked Lucius.

xxx

1958

"Malfoy could have had the map open at that page for some other reason," suggested Moody, patronising Eileen to try and get a rise out of her. Weeks ago he might have succeeded, but since she'd knocked him off his feet in duelling practice she no longer felt intimidated. He was the finest auror the Ministry had ever produced, it was said; nevertheless, he had still made a very undignified "oof" noise when she blasted him off his feet so that he landed on his bottom. It was a sound she replayed inside her head whenever he tried to put her down.

Eileen stared right into his doubting brown eyes and smirked until she saw them narrow with irritation.

"You may be right, Alastor," she conceded, with so much sarcasm that Dumbledore had to hide a small grin in his beard. "He is probably interested in something else in that area, and not in Mabberly's house. The acres and acres of bare scrubland, for instance. Or…" she paused, frowning as though thinking hard. "No, there was only the scrub for miles around. No interesting rocks or fascinating bogs full of marvellous delights for the wealthy young wizard to enjoy."

"There must be _something_ else nearby," he snorted, appealing to Dumbledore. "Why on earth would Malfoy be looking up the coordinates of Mabberly's house? Our little Princess here could have missed a vital point."

"Eileen is right," interrupted Septimus. "Fanda does live in the middle of nowhere. If you stand at her bedroom window on a clear day you can see for miles and miles and there's really no other sign of anything but moorland out there."

"What were you doing in her bedroom?" asked Moody sharply.

"Nothing that's ever interested you, Alastor," Septimus quipped, flashing a wicked smile at Eileen, who couldn't help colouring even as she rolled her eyes.

"Children, children," Albus, seeing where the conversation was headed, raised his hands to halt it. "Fanda Mabberly is a very dear old friend of mine who makes many enemies by broadcasting her radical views about muggles and magical society, views which families like the Malfoys traditionally find abhorrent. I imagine that Abraxas will simply want to visit her and argue that she is wrong to think of muggles as equal to wizards and ask her to stop threatening the world as he knows it by encouraging other people to broaden their minds."

No one spoke as they turned the opinion over in their minds. Fawkes fidgeted on his perch and scratched the back of his head with a clawed foot, twisting his body into a peculiar shape as he did so. Eileen looked from his orange feathers to Septimus Weasley's flaming hair and wondered if there was a witch in England he hadn't tried to seduce.

"Perhaps, Albus," Moody broke the silence by speaking to Dumbledore, but he was looking straight at her. "Perhaps Mrs Snape might benefit from some field training."

"What a very good idea," beamed Dumbledore. "If you don't have to go home, that is?"

"My husband goes out with his friends on Wednesdays," she supplied. "He won't be home for hours. What do you mean by 'field training?'"

x

"It's an exercise in stealth," whispered Moody, as they inched their way across the dark and bare landscape towards Mabberly Lodge.

"We get ourselves close enough to hear what passes between Fanda and Malfoy without being seen," Septimus' voice floated behind her. "It's all very well being able to fight, but the greater part of the spy's job is to simply observe."

"Waste of time," Moody grumbled. "Obviously they're…" Septimus put his hand on Moody's shoulder to stop him.

"Eileen, why did Alastor just say it was a waste of time, do you think?"

The patchy cloud cover meant there wasn't much light from the stars and without a single man-made light visible anywhere, she couldn't really make out much bar the dark shape of the house looming fifty yards away.

The dark shape?

"There are no lights, so she must be out," she whispered, pleased with the easy question.

Moody gave a hum of grudged approval, but kept advancing towards the building.

"We're still going in?" asked Eileen in puzzlement. "What can we possibly learn if no one's there?"

"We may as well check that everything's OK since we've come all this way," reasoned Weasley.

"Good practice for you, too. You should learn how to effectively search premises for information instead of just fumbling around in the dark," gruffed Alastor.

"Stick with me, sweetheart, I'm awfully good at fumbling around in the dark," grinned Septimus, resting his hand on her waist. She smacked it off immediately with a tut of irritation, making him yelp.

"Oh, be quiet, both of you. And get your hoods up. If this was a real secret mission we'd have to be incognito."

Septimus was dispatched to check the back of the house, Eileen was allocated the ground floor and Moody took the first floor. By the dim glow of their wands, she noticed that the auror's kilt showed off a rather fine pair of legs as he crept up the stairs and she silently cursed Weasley for making her mind wander by constantly bringing sex into the conversation. Fine as Moody's muscular body was, one could never escape the fact that it contained his less than pleasant personality.

The door immediately in front of her led to the kitchen, so she carefully made her way there, checking every corner for concealed intruders and feeling a bit of a fool when there were none. The pantry door was ajar so she checked there too, almost giggling aloud at the idea of unknown peril lurking behind the jars of chutney when her foot touched against something on the ground. With an intake of breath, she flashed the beam of her wandlight onto it and then nothing was funny or foolish anymore.

A middle aged witch was lying on her back with her mouth slightly open and her eyes wide and sightless.

Eileen knew even before she bent down to touch the pale skin that the woman was dead, just as she had known five years earlier that Myrtle was dead on the cold floor tiles of the girls' toilet. Then she had been paralysed with remorse for all the mean things she and the others had said and would never be able to take back (or so she had thought at the time), staring at the body for at least ten minutes before she had been able to raise the alarm.

Now however, the dead person was a stranger, Eileen was an adult and she was very aware that if a murderer was on the loose she, Septimus and Moody might be in serious danger. She was about to send a patronus to Septimus when a sudden kerfuffle erupted above her head. The old creaking floorboards groaned under rapid footsteps, spells crackled and terrible bangs like the falling of heavy furniture shook the walls so hard the pantry jars began rattling against each other on the shelves.

She raced out into the hallway where it became obvious that a tremendous duel was taking place upstairs, with male voices yelling and flashes of curses lighting up the darkness. The sensible course of action would be to get help, Eileen knew, but it might be more useful to the wizards to have another wand on their side immediately, even if it was a barely trained one. She had ascended only two steps towards the battle when a dark shape came tumbling down the stairs, knocking her over as it landed in a sprawl of limbs and dark cloak. Septimus followed the figure, flying down more gracefully and there was a quick exchange of fire before the assailant scrambled to his feet and out of the front door, shooting curses back over his shoulder.

"You OK?" yelled Sep, pausing in his pursuit to check on her.

"Yes!" she called, annoyed at having been no help. "Go! Catch him!" As Weasley plunged outside she incanted her patronus and sent it to Albus, then ran up the stairs where the fight was still raging. As she reached the landing, there was a scream of agony, a crash and then terrifying silence.

For the barest second, Eileen hesitated while her brain tried to warn her that unknown danger lay in the room beyond, which crackled with the residue of dark magic, but it was too late for common sense. Duty and loyalty took over instead and propelled her forward.

There was hardly time to assess the situation. She saw solid oak furniture scattered anyhow; a framed painting burning with green flame as it hung on the wall; one of Moody's feet sticking out from under an upturned bookcase; Tom Riddle's handsome face turning towards her with grim determination. After that spell after spell ripped at her and from her, so fast there was no time to speak the incantations or even think about which to use. All she could do was block and dodge, fire out anything she could manage so that the dark wizard was peppered with a stream of disarmers, hexes, jinxes and whatever else her adrenaline-fuelled instincts of self-preservation chose to throw.

When two curses collided head on and knocked Eileen and Riddle off their feet, the force blew out the glass from the window and the sudden quiet meant that shouting voices could be heard outside. It didn't sound like Septimus, so she allowed herself the luxury of hoping that reinforcements had arrived. Riddle was struggling to his feet in preparation for another round of duelling when a white and yellow figure apparated right between them.

Almost immediately, Riddle vanished along with the newcomer, who was must have been chancing his hand at the near-impossible skill of apparition-tracking in order to chase him.

Eileen found she was alone, her heart pounding and ears ringing from the frantic fight. She had been duelling Tom Riddle! The thought was a shocking one, not only because the enemy that the Order had been working against turned out to be a man only a few years older than herself and one whom she remembered from school, but also because he had been the undisputed champion dueller. Inconceivably, she, awkward little Eileen Prince, had held her own against a much more powerful wizard.

Breathlessly, she chuckled to herself and drew her hood back, untucking her hair from its usual position behind her ears, then leaped up as though stung when she remembered Moody. There was some light in the room but not enough, so she encanted a lumos directly above the upturned bookcase which was lying on top of him, leaving only his foot sticking out.

"Moody?" she called. There was no response. He would simply be unconscious, she told herself; Riddle will have thrown him against the shelves and the whole thing will have fallen down onto him, bopping him on the head. It was really very unlikely that such an experienced auror would be badly hurt or…or… She cut the thought off swiftly. _"Wingardium leviosa!"_

She had misjudged the weight of the solid oak bookcase and had not put enough force into the spell, so the wood merely creaked at her and a stray paperback flew upwards and stuck to the ceiling. Moody's foot had not moved. Perhaps she was more tired by all the spellfire than she had imagined. Concentrating harder, she tried again and this time the bookcase and most of its contents lifted five feet in the air and she bent her knees ready to kneel down next to Moody.

Then stopped in an odd half-crouch as she saw that he wasn't there.

Eileen looked at his shoe, which had been visible sticking out from under the bookcase. Then she looked at sock sticking out of the shoe, one of the thick woollen ones he wore with his kilt. The she looked at the shiny red pulp and the vivid splinter of white sticking out of the top of the sock where the rest of Alastor Moody should have been.

The bookcase fell back down with a bang.

Other people had entered the room and were dodging around the fallen furniture and enchanted conflagrations, shouting desperate orders at each other in the furthest corner from Eileen. She stood for a moment, listening, unsure what to do.

"Call the para-healers now!"

"Stop the bleeding! Here, catch hold of this for me."

"Alastor?! Can you hear me?"

"Where is it?"

"Auror Moody? Sir?"

"What's going on? I…oh, _shit!_""

"Get out of the bloody way, for Merlin's sake…"

"Sorry…"

"Alastor? Alastor, it's me, Albus. Can you squeeze my hand?"

"Never mind your hand, just find the damn leg!"

"It's here," called Eileen, surprised at how steady her voice was. Five or six faces bobbed upwards and stared at her, not having noticed anyone else in the room. "Over here. It's quite badly damaged, though."

Dumbledore was beside her in an instant, yellow robes wafting around obstacles and brushing over debris.

"Eileen! Are you hurt?" He grabbed her upper arms and looked her over from head to toe.

"No, I blocked everything he cast at me with spells of my own. Moody's leg's here. Can they put it back on?"

Dumbledore went very still, not following her finger awkwardly pointing at the bookcase behind them and the grisly find beneath. His grip tightened.

"Child, you duelled Riddle and survived?" He drew her closer until their faces were inches apart. "Without so much as a _scratch_?"

"Dumbledore!" yelled someone from across the room. "What that hell are you faffing around for? Where's that leg?!" He released her and flicked his wand to raise the bookcase, snatching up the mangled limb. Before he dashed over to where the team of healers was desperately trying to save his friend's life, he winked a glittering blue eye at her and said:

"Eileen Snape, you are an amazing woman."

…….


	18. Chapter 18

Recap: 1958 - There was a bit of a fight. Septimus fought an unknown man, Eileen duelled Tom Riddle and survived unscathed, Albus' friend Fanda Mabberly was not so lucky, neither was Moody.

2007 - Lucius and Severus spoke to Hagrid, who after much stuttering and blushing, claimed he and Eileen were never romantically involved. He couldn't suggest any alternative candidates, but did reveal that Eileen had spent some time with Moody, supposedly "training to be an auror." Well, no sensible person would tell Hagrid that they were secretly a spy, would they?

xxx

2007

The Minister of Magic was paying attention during his meeting with the Head of Magical Law Enforcement, as he always paid attention to every matter brought before him, no matter how insignificant. It was this thoroughness which marked Kingsley Shacklebolt out as the finest leader of the magical United Kingdom for centuries and, it was said, probably the reason the country was making such good progress at recovering after a decade of devastating war.

Severus Snape also deserved his reputation for sharpness, so, as the two politicians discussed matters of national importance, he couldn't help but notice that for all his engagement with the minutiae of leadership, Kingsley appeared to be in a very bad mood.

As this particular meeting concerned only routine matters and was just between the two of them with a Dicta-Quill taking notes, Snape felt able to grab the quill out of the air to stop it scribbling and set aside work matters for a moment.

"Kingsley, what's bothering you?"

"Huh?" the Minister looked startled.

"Come on. My own personal issues have been wearing me thin recently," he gave rueful smirk. "It's clear there's something on your mind now. Can I be of assistance or is it none of my business?"

Kingsley leaned back in his chair and made a strange noise of resignation.

"I thought I was doing well at hiding it, actually."

"It?" Snape queried. Kingsley stared at the photograph of his young family in the frame on his desk. Tonks was waving madly with one hand and holding the tiniest fluffy-haired baby on her hip with the other. Around them, the three toddlers raced, jumped and changed their faces into animals or other people in a state of high excitement. Snape secretly found it most disconcerting when the little metamorphagi suddenly transformed into each other, their parents or the family dog without warning, but assumed that their father considered it cute.

"I hope all is well with your family," he said.

"They're all great," he smiled. "It's me that's the problem. I missed Gloria's first word yesterday."

"Oh," said Snape, aware he was out of his depth with these parental troubles. He struggled for a suitable response. "What was it?"

"'Stop'. She was telling Julius and Andi not to steal her piece of cake."

"I'm sure she'll say it again," he said lamely. "But I suppose that's not the point."

"The point is that I missed Julius' first steps, Andi's first words and her first transformation. Primrose was born so quickly, being Nymphadora's fourth baby, they didn't manage to get hold of me until she was ten minutes old," he picked up the frame and stared at the mischievous little faces. "I can't help but wonder how many more important events in their lives I'm going to miss because of the demands of this job."

Wishing he hadn't asked, Snape felt rather useless when the only thing he could think of to respond with was "there-there." He refrained from saying it aloud.

An incoming owl provided a very welcome distraction as the silence lengthened. It had the overworked, put-upon look of a Hogwarts school bird and when Snape apologised for not having a treat as a reward for its long journey, it didn't look surprised. The letter smelled of damp dog and the writing was very large and untidy, so it wasn't hard to deduce its source.

"Have we finished?" he asked Kingsley, who had managed to rouse himself from his unusual despondency.

"I've said all I wanted to say," he said.

"Then I will go and read my letter," Snape rose. He hesitated, knowing something else was needed. "You know, you're making the world a better place for your children by working so hard. Your children and everyone else's."

"So Nymphadora tells me," he said, with a shrug.

Snape dashed back to his office and tore open the letter with trepidation about its contents. Had Hagrid been withholding information? Had he found out some even more shocking new fact?

_Dear Severus,_

_I don't write things down very often and in consequence I'm not very good at it. But I've been thinking a lot since we met. And I want to say a few things witch I didn't say then._

_First off, I would be so proud of you if you were my son. You have done some amazing things over the past few years. And before then too. I think Prof. Dumbledore would have been pleased to see how well you are and how happy because he always hoped you might forgive yourself and be happy. Even if it is with Malfoy. But I won't talk about him for your sake because I know how you feel about him though I can't for the life of me see why except maybe for the hare but that is probably as white as mine really by now._

_Second. I've been feeling bad because I remember how well your mum and I used to get on when she was in her last couple of years at school and I was a prentice groundskeeper. We lost touch just before you were born but I saw about your arrival in the paper and I sent a card. Then you came to Hogwarts and I said hello when I saw you. Skinny angry boy but clever the teachers said. You didn't know what to make of me and well after a while I suppose your friends had ideas about mixing with the likes of me and anyway you were never outdoors. I wasn't teaching then and I never saw you much although I should have made an effort because of your mum._

_I was wondering if I had made an effort things might not have happened the way they did with that evil bastard pardon my French getting his claws into you. (Voldemort I mean not Malfoy.)_

_Third. I know I'm not your father and you don't need one either but if you ever did you could come and see me anytime. I would like to see you. I know you're busy with important work and lots of other things. I don't mean regularly and you don't have to but I just wanted to tell you you can if you want. I will be nice to Malfoy if you bring him._

_Good luck with your search for your father. I hope it turns out to be a worthy person. But if it's not that doesn't matter because you've achieved great things all by yourself without his help._

_Best wishes,_

_Rubeus Hagrid_

The frank missive was rather touching and the more Snape mulled over the previous day's conversation with Hagrid, the more he began to think that having the half-giant for a father would have been the best solution. Loud, part-human and indiscreet though he was, no one could deny Hagrid was a good man.

The possibility of being related to Mad-eye Moody made Snape feel slightly queasy after all the battles of the first Voldemort war and the mistrustful sniping between them ever since. The auror had been the number one enemy of the young Death Eaters, who largely failed to share the Dark Lord's obsession with Dumbledore. Moody was clever at stalking and battling and was rumoured to torture anyone he captured, whereas many of his comrades found it difficult to take seriously an enemy who wore pink and blathered in public about woolly socks and Honeydukes' finest, even if he had been supremely omniscient and powerful. During the turbulent times after Voldemort's first disappearance and the rounding up his sympathisers, Snape had begged Albus to do everything within his power to keep him from falling into the vengeful Moody's hands, even for simple questioning.

It was very difficult to imagine the hard-boiled cynic ever having had love affairs, although Snape mused that his former pupils probably said the same of him.

Hagrid hadn't been able to give a very thorough description of the attack which had cost Moody a leg and Snape was desperate to know more. Most of all he wondered why his mother had been involved. Even if Hagrid had been correct and she had considered becoming an auror, she ought not to have been involved in that sort of fight without any training. And who had been responsible for the assault? So many questions. Albus would have known the answers. Severus leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, desperately wishing the infuriating old meddler were there to advise him, even with his infuriating, cryptic puzzles.

Before the deadly scene on the Astronomy Tower could replay itself in his head for the thousandth time in shades of black and green, he opened his eyes and pulled out a pile of paperwork and tried to be cheered by Hagrid's failure to mention anything to do with Abraxas Malfoy.

Lucius had been so patient throughout all this mess, culminating in his demure acceptance of Hagrid's hatred for him the previous day. He hadn't snarled or given in to any of the easy digs he could have taken at the old half-giant's expense, either out of respect in case he turned out to be Snape's father or so that they could concentrate on coaxing the information out of him. It was reassuring to know that the tremendous cunning and political skill which had made Malfoy such a dangerous opponent before his imprisonment were now on Snape's side.

As he shuffled through the papers in the nearest of his many in-trays, he felt a sudden wave of smugness that Lucius was his, then another rush of guilt at how little time they spent together because of his busy life. Even the nice meal he had tried to indulge his lover with had gone strangely wrong - unwittingly he had chosen the place where Lucius and Narcissa used to go when they were still married, Lucius had seemed on edge throughout the evening then Snape had been called away as soon as it was over. If he was going to keep such a prize, he needed to make more of an effort and more often.

On top of the pile was a migrane-inducing report into the teething problems of the new Ministry security system, the one which had raised all the problems with his paternity in the first place. Shoving it aside with a scowl he spotted a small, stiff invitation card and was about to automatically toss it into the waste paper basket when he paused. The whole world knew that he and Lucius were an item, although as they were gay, unmarried and Lucius the known ex-Death Eater was still a figure of great controversy, they never appeared officially together. At public functions Kingsley often had Tonks on his arm and Arthur arrived with Narcissa (even during their early honeymoon period when they were still incapable of keeping their hands off each other's bottoms, to the amusement or distaste of the company), yet Severus had accepted being alone.

He turned the little card over in his fingers and studied it pensively. His relationship with Lucius was more than two years old now. As far as he could tell, there were no serious plots or campaigns trying to shake his authority - and he kept a close eye out for such things, having grown rather fond of power. The little reception taking place that afternoon was not a very grand affair. There would be no important overseas visitors or grave matters for public discussion. Perhaps it was just the right sort of occasion for their first "outing"…

xxx

"As you can see, this lovely rich shade of plum would contrast beautifully with the cream of the curtains and the paintwork, lending the whole kitchen an atmosphere of warmth," Lucius pitched half-heartedly, deciding that if Minerva McGonagall refused to accept this final idea he would just have to pay his fee back to her nieces and give up.

The younger women had thought it would be a treat for their aunt to have her whole cottage made-over by the country's most fashionable interior designer in honour of her eightieth birthday, but she clearly resented having an ex-Death Eater messing with the home which had served her perfectly well for decades. She had disagreed with Lucius at every turn. Every colour, fabric, wood or arrangement of furniture he suggested had been wrong. He had made endless models of each room, wildly differing from each other and taking on board previous criticisms, yet they had all been met with pursed lips and a dismissive shake of the head.

Today, she peered into the model over the top of her spectacles, looking just as scathing as on the many previous occasions. Lucius steeled himself for the inevitable knock-back and prepared a polite but curt explanation of why, since neither of them was benefitting from the constant disagreement, he should leave her in peace and never set foot inside her hideously-decorated little house again. It would surely come as a relief to both sides and he would be free to devote his energy to finer projects. He was startled when she replaced the model on the table without comment and looked him directly in the eye.

"I hear you have been encouraging Severus to do some research on his late mother," she stated accusingly.

"Who on earth told you that?" he gaped, cursing inwardly.

"Pomona Sprout, of course," she admitted, unabashed. "What are you hoping to learn?"

"Private things," he said quickly. "I say, did you ever teach her at Hogwarts?"

"No."

"But surely..?"

"Misterrrrr Malfoy," the old witch drew herself up indignantly. "I did not spend my entire life at that school, I'll have you know. I travelled extensively and undertook a great deal of study into animagism around the world after gaining my NEWTs. I returned to Scotland at the age of thirty-two and took the job of transfiguration professor in order to be closer to my sister who was widowed young with three small children. I never knew the person who became Severus' mother."

"Oh," said Lucius. Before he could come up with a response, she continued in what was probably intended as a tantalising tone of voice.

"But if you are trying to learn anything about her from someone at Hogwarts, you're looking in entirely the wrong place."

"We've tried Hagrid," he sighed. "And I also had to speak to Moaning Myrtle, Merlin help me."

McGonagall narrowed her eyes at him and gave a smug, very feline half-smile.

"No, Malfoy. I was rrrrreferring to someone whom you knew much more intimately."

Lucius racked his brains for a moment. Before he could make any headway with the riddle, the sitting-room floo flared and Severus' face appeared.

Delighted, McGonagall made a big fuss and tried to pull him in to have tea, offering all sorts of welcoming delicacies - shortbread, home-made cauldron cakes and a host of tempting treats which had never been mentioned to Lucius - as bribes to make him stay. Severus resisted manfully.

"I'm afraid I am on Ministry business today and have no time to spare. If the invitation can be extended to the weekend, however…" he suggested.

"Yes! Do come on Saturday afternoon! I'll make Dundee cake, that's your favourite," she beamed, then her gaze fell on Lucius and the beam faltered. "I suppose your man is welcome too," she added, grudgingly.

"Thank you, Minerva," Snape acknowledged the favour with a small bow of the head. "Now, Lucius, are you finished here? May I borrow you for a few hours?"

"Oh," Malfoy laughed, shaking his head. "I think I might well be finished here forever, actually."

"What?!" snapped McGonagall. "What about my new plum and cream coloured kitchen?"

"What?" echoed Lucius. She pointed at the model still sitting on the coffee table, glaring as though he were an imbecile. The tiny copper kettle steamed realistically on the tiny cooker as designer and client faced each other. His eyes widened. "You mean..? You don't mean to tell me that you _like_ my idea?!"

"Certainly," she replied.

Snape sighed and fiddled with his hair in the floo as Minerva and an incredulous Lucius made arrangements to begin work on the kitchen, setting up further meetings and talking about the finalising of details such as door handles and pelmets. When matters were settled, he reached out a hand to hurry Lucius along as much as to assist him to step through, though apparently there was still one more question before he could leave.

"Who at Hogwarts?" Lucius turned back to ask Minerva. She flashed the cat's smile once more.

"Dobby."

A whoosh of flame later, the couple were standing in Snape's office at the Ministry, being pushed around by his assistant and greatest workplace asset, Cho Chang.

"I've got a set of dress robes for each of you," she said to Snape, ignoring Lucius as much as possible in accordance with her personal views on Death Eaters, which extended to the one who happened to be her boss' partner. "I wasn't sure if *he* would want the plain green or the charcoal-grey striped set, but the elf said that the grey brought out his eyes so I took that."

"Thank you," said Lucius. With her typical efficiency, Cho thrust the garments at him firmly enough to convey distaste but not enough to crease and conjured a screen so the men could change privately while she briefed Snape with a string of facts from a clip-board.

"Where are we going?" Lucius managed to interject during one of the pauses.

"The new Chief Healer of St Mungo's is being announced with a champagne reception in the Barnabus Ballroom," Snape deftly tied his cravat. "I thought you might enjoy a bit of political posing."

All thoughts of McGonagall's kitchen and her strange advice about house-elves vanished as the magnitude of Severus' words sunk in. For the first time, he was to attend an official function as the date of the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. True, it was not the greatest occasion in the Ministry's overstuffed social calendar, but in terms of declaring their relationship to be important in a public place, it was a very big deal.

"Thank you, Severus," he said softly, feeling very moved.

Cho cleared her throat pointedly from the other side of the screen before Snape could respond.

As they approached the atrium a few minutes later, Cho was still briefing Severus with a patchwork of tiny details incomprehensible to non-MLE staff and Lucius became aware of the sound of the party. It had been more than ten years since had attended a social event. Since leaving Azkaban he had not received any invitations. Draco lived like a recluse when not being forcibly dragged into rock 'n' roll hellraising with his old school friends the popular music combo The Griminals. Narcissa had inferred once or twice that his presence would be tolerated at the Weasleys' Burrow, but he had thought it unfair to his ex-wife, her new family and more importantly, himself to create that awkward scenario. Most of his other acquaintances were dead or in prison.

Severus was obliged to put in an appearance at official functions such as this from time to time. Judging by the observations he related to Lucius afterwards, he gained little enjoyment from any aspect of these junkets save gleaning useful bits of information from those who had managed to drink too much of the ghastly Ministry-issue wine.

This would be the very first occasion for Lucius to appear officially as Snape's partner and he found he was suddenly terrified.

In the old days, he had held court in the Barnabus Ballroom, sweeping down the sumptuous curve of the main staircase with Narcissa on his arm, firmly convinced that they were superior to every other creature in the room. It had been entertaining to watch important people jostling to get his attention, hearing their sycophantic laughter and easily guessing what barely-hidden agenda lay just beneath their politely veneered pleasantries.

He realised that he possessed none of that social confidence this afternoon. His recent interactions with Hagrid, McGonagall and Cho had reminded him that much of society now viewed him as scum who still deserved to be in prison. It slipped his mind more often than was probably wise that, were it not for Severus' love, he would even now be rotting away in that bare stone cell.

Suppressing the dark thoughts as best he could, Lucius clung to the fact that Severus _had_ used his considerable powers to release him two years earlier and that the Head of the MLE clearly now believed that it was time for their relationship to stop being the discreet affair which everyone knew about but was kept unofficial. If Severus thought the world was ready to see them as a couple, then he trusted that judgement.

As they neared the entrance and the hubbub increased in volume, Cho melted away and Snape turned to him.

"All right, Lucius?" he asked.

"Mmm," he nodded, willing it to be true.

"Then, out we come!"

1958

"Argh! Ouch! _Shit_, Abraxas! What the hell are you doing?!"

"Tom, hold still for Merlin's sake," muttered Malfoy. "I can't apply this potion while you're squirming about."

"It stings!" snarled Riddle, his teeth clenched in a grimace of pain. "That little _bitch!_ If I ever find out who she was, I'll…ow!"

"Sorry," Malfoy poured more of the tincture onto the flannel and dabbed it onto Riddle's damaged skin as gently as he could. The evening had been very unsettling and he was keen to get Tom fixed and out of his home before anyone came looking for them. He was certain that Septimus Weasley had not recognised him as they fought, but Dumbledore and this mystery woman had both got a good look at Riddle's face and the entire Ministry would now be out hunting him down for murder.

"Had you planned to kill Mabberly?" he asked, carefully keeping the resentment out of his voice. Unlike Tom, Abraxas had a son and an illustrious family name to protect. He had too much to lose to go chasing around in the dark committing pointless atrocities. "I thought we were just going to discreetly bully her a bit, try and get her to keep her dangerous opinions to herself."

Tom sighed and took another swig of firewhiskey to deaden the pain until the potions kicked in.

"It wasn't in the original plan," he replied peevishly. "But then I didn't expect the muggle-loving fool to be so…" he waved the tumbler around, searching for an adjective, "…so provoking. She actually laughed in my face, Brax, you saw her!"

Abraxas stoppered the bottle and said nothing. He shrugged off his jacket and undid the top buttons of his shirt before flopping onto the sofa next to his friend. They both stared at the flames dancing in the grate until the clock on the mantel chimed the hour and they both looked up at it.

"Where will you go?" asked Abraxas. "You can't stay in this country."

"I was going to take a trip to the Continent anyway," said Riddle carelessly. "There's a man I have to see in Germany, then I have to plot my revenge on Dumbledore. I was chased around like a golden snitch last night by that ridiculous old poof. I've had enough of his interference - something will be done about him! I swear by Merlin I'll get him back for this!"

Without a word, Malfoy stood and left the room, leaving his guest gingerly touching his skin to see that it had healed properly before pulling on his robes and preparing to go. He returned two minutes later with a heavy leather purse, which he thrust into Riddle's pocket.

"Abraxas, no!" Riddle tried to give it back, his face clouding.

"Dumbledore has friends all over the world who will all be keeping their beady eyes out for you, so you'll need to stay ahead of them," said Malfoy, pushing him away.

"I can manage without charity," hissed Riddle.

"Shut up and take it, fool. Once you come into your inheritance and your title, you can pay me back."

Riddle hesitated while his pride battled against his practicality. Finally, he slid the bag back into his pocket.

"I will. With interest," he stipulated, glancing determinedly up at Malfoy.

"Fine," Malfoy agreed, stretching out his hand. Riddle shook it firmly.

"Good-bye, then," he said. "I'll be away for a while but I will return."

"I don't doubt it," smiled Abraxas.

xxx

"Snape," said Moody, nodding a greeting.

"Moody," Eileen nodded back from the doorway. "How are you?"

"I'd be a lot better if I weren't in a draught. Either come in and shut that damn door or else sod off," he growled.

Recognising the invitation for what it was, Eileen entered and perched in the visitor's chair, deliberately not staring at the way the blankets tented above a single foot at the bottom of the bed instead of two. The awful curse Riddle had used to try and kill the auror had only been partially deflected, so it had torn raggedly through his lower leg, leaving the limb too badly damaged to be re-attached. The healers had tried an amazing ground-breaking potion called Skele-gro, so new it hadn't been fully clinically tested yet, but the lingering dark magic of the curse had rendered it useless.

"Will they give you a false leg?" she asked, knowing it was pointless to offer sympathy or ask simpering questions.

"It's the only way," he replied curtly. "They'll measure me up tomorrow and get started on it, so I can be back at work as soon as it's ready."

"You're going back?" exclaimed Eileen.

"Course I am," he scoffed, brown eyes mocking her. "What? You thought that I'd let myself be put out to pasture 'cos of a little setback like this?"

Privately, Eileen wondered how much use a one-legged auror would be to the MLE. Perhaps he could take a desk job, or do the paperwork. Despite his abrasive nature and all the personality clashes they had gone through, she knew that it was thanks to his lessons in duelling that she was still alive. She told him so.

"You can't polish a turd," he said quickly, looking away. "You had a great deal of natural magical capability already - I merely showed you how to use it. Few nineteen year-olds would have walked away from that fight alive." He looked discomfited at having been forced to admit her ability and Eileen thoroughly enjoyed it, leaning over towards him, invading his space and grinning in a way calculated to annoy him.

"Did you just compliment a spoiled, stuck-up pureblooded princess, Alastor?" she teased him with everything he'd ever thrown at her as an insult, fluttering her eyelashes. To her disappointment, he didn't take the bait, looking away with what on anyone else she would have sworn to be a blush. He swallowed and struggled with something for a moment.

"I'll tell you something about a spoiled, stuck-up pureblooded princess, Snape," he whispered. "Then when I've said it, you will get up and walk out of this room and the next time we meet we'll be busy working for Albus and in a public place, understood?" Not understanding a bit, Eileen nodded anyway. He took a deep breath through his nose and exhaled through his mouth, then cleared his throat.

"If the feisty, spirited, powerful, determined, pureblooded princess in question were not already spoken for, I would have asked her to marry me this afternoon."

Eileen's jaw fell open and her lungs stopped working. There was no sarcasm anywhere in the statement, in fact, he had kept the tone of antagonistic gruffness with which he always stated bare facts. Before she had time to recover or even digest what any of this could possibly mean, he spoke again.

"Now, get out," he snapped.

xxx

At 10:30 on a not particularly warm Thursday morning during term-time, Fortescue's terrace was deserted. Septimus was sitting alone with the Daily Prophet lying unheeded on the table in front of him as he stared into space, the creases on his forehead indicating that he had been thinking long and hard about something unpleasant.

Eileen made her was past the empty tables and only when she brushed against a chair and made it scrape against the stone flags a few feet away did he look up. Immediately the pensive look faded from his face and he smiled as he rose to greet her.

"Morning, sweetheart," he kissed her loudly on the cheek and motioned her to sit. "Well," he began, folding up the paper and opening the menu. "Is the summer officially over, or can we squeeze in one last ice-cream? What will it be? Knickerbocker Glory? Lush Lemon Tang-fastic Ultra-Juicy Citrus Sundae?"

"It's a bit early in the day for me, Sep," she grimaced, unhappily contrasting the indulgent treats with the meagre fare on offer in Spinner's End. "I'll just have a cup of coffee."

"You really know how to disappoint a chap, don't you?" Septimus sighed. "If you're being sensible then I suppose I ought to follow suit." Florean arrived and was duly dispatched to make two coffees, looking rather disappointed too. Before the Order members could begin talking in earnest, they spotted Walburga Black and another sour-faced rich witch glaring at them with scandalised faces from outside Madam Malkin's. Eileen was seized by a sudden urge to lean over the table and snog Septimus full on the lips, with tongue, just to see how the old hags would react, but restrained herself with the thought of how quickly Sep's long-suffering wife and children would get to hear of it and awful it would be for them.

She marvelled to herself once again how a man so kind, amusing and brave was capable of treating his family so shabbily. How was it possible that such a devoted and loving father could carry on so readily with any passing female who caught his eye?

Eventually, the gossiping harpies grew bored of staring and went into Malkin's, leaving Eileen and Septimus free to speak unobserved.

"Moody's really on the mend now," said Septimus. "Itching to get back to work."

"Mmm," said Eileen, letting her hair fall in front of her face in case she betrayed any of her continuing confusion over the auror's shock confession.

"I think the MLE will have a fight on their hands if they think they can sideline him because of his injury," Sep continued, too preoccupied with whatever was preying on his own mind to observe her closely.

"Definitely," agreed Eileen, still hiding.

They drank the coffee in silence for a few minutes, which was odd as Eileen had spent the previous few days wishing she could meet up with Sep and talk about the hundreds of little things bothering her since the attack. Dumbledore had been evasive when not heaping praise on her, avoiding all her questions about Riddle, Mabberly and the future and only stressing how important it was that she strengthened the bond with Abraxas and his little boy. It was clear that Malfoy had somehow been involved, having researched the apparition co-ordinates to the scene of the crime just hours earlier. She had been sure that Sep would be able to provide her with some answers, but now they had the opportunity to chat, he was not his usual talkative self. Albus had asked with feigned nonchalance whether she had noticed any change in the serial rake's behaviour since the attack. Only having seen him once very briefly in the week since that night, she had replied in the negative. Now, however, she decided there was something odd about his manner and the way he had been forcing his usually easy smiles - this sudden outbreak of grimness did not bode well.

Eileen watched her cup as it magically refilled too close to the brim so that she had to lift it very carefully with both hands and take a few sips of the scalding black liquid to make enough space for the cream.

"Eileen," Sep set down his cup decisively, all traces of mildness gone from his usually cheerful, freckled face. "Can I tell you something?"

"Of course," she replied evenly.

"I haven't told anyone else," he looked ashamed and fidgeted with his cup and saucer. "Not even the wife."

"What is it?" prompted Eileen, with concern.

"It must have been during the fight. There were spells flying upstairs between all four of us, then I chased that bloke outside after he fell on you at the bottom of the stairs," he tilted his head on one side as if to remind her. She nodded. "I had an apparition block on him to try and stop him getting away, and the duelling got quite nasty for a minute."

"You weren't hurt?" she interrupted. "Albus said you took a minor hit but were easily fixed."

"That's what we thought at the time," he sighed as though in pain. "But I now believe he did me some permanent damage."

Florean came bustling over at exactly the wrong moment, cheerily offering warm biscuits he had baked especially for them, on the house, probably because he had so little else to do. With a great effort, Septimus dragged the smile back onto his face and engaged in light banter for a few minutes, although Eileen could tell that the crumbly butterscotch creation he was enthusing over so cheerfully to its maker had really turned to ash in his mouth. Eventually Florean left them alone again and the treats remained half-eaten on pretty chintz dessert plates.

"Excuse me for picking on you with something so indelicate. Most un-gentlemanlike of me, actually. It's because I consider you to be a very good friend and I can't bear to tell anyone else, yet keeping it to myself has been agony," Septimus frowned and looked at the table in embarrassment. "It's just that, since then, I've lost the ability to behave like a husband."

The euphemism confused Eileen for a few seconds as she wondered how having flirted with every woman who breathed all his adult life had ever made him a proper husband, until the knut dropped and she gasped.

"You mean..?" her hands flew to her mouth.

"It's terrible. Not just that _don't want to_, I actually, physically _can't,_" he coloured right to his ears, which glowed bright red with shame. "My whole life is ruined."

xxx


	19. Chapter 19

Recap:

1958 - Tom Riddle fled the country after Eileen duelled him at the scene of a murder, where he also fought Moody and severed the young auror's leg. Moody confessed to Eileen that he very much admired her for being so skilled and having such attitude. The other attacker cursed Septimus Weasley's during the fight, leaving the old rake impotent.

2007 - McGonagall and Lucius finally came to a decision regarding the colour scheme of her kitchen. Snape decided that after two years as partners it was time he and the ex-jailbird Lucius appeared in public together, so invited him to a low-key Ministry party to celebrate the appointment of a new chief healer at St Mungo's. Not the grandest re-entry into society, but enough to make them both nervous.

xxx

2007

Lucius had been expecting an awkward silence as he and Severus entered the ballroom together. Fortunately, as the reception had already been going for about an hour by the time they arrived, most of the guests had put away a couple of glasses of wine and contented themselves with nudging each other and staring.

With the sense of timing which made him such a brilliant politician, Kingsley Shacklebolt allowed everyone just long enough to focus their attention of Malfoy before he approached to share centre stage.

"Afternoon, Lucius," he smiled, shaking hands with enough warmth that even those on the far side of the room could feel it. "Nice to see you."

"Hi, Kingsley." Aware of every eye in the room on him, Lucius refused to show how relieved he was at being publicly welcomed back into society by the highest authority in the wizarding world. Instead he returned the Minister's friendly smile as though everything was perfectly normal. "How are the children?"

Snape allowed himself to breathe as the guests accepted the new arrival without making a scene, turning back to their conversations. He also made a mental note that he owed Shacklebolt a huge favour for setting such a good example of how Lucius should be treated. Not to mention the fact that it would be much harder to attack someone standing right next to the Minister without getting into serious trouble with his personal protection operatives, who were hovering benignly in the vicinity.

Thus reassured, Snape exchanged a few words with a healer who approached him and escaped with a quick "please make an appointment with my office" before she was able to unleash her fury at him. Apparently, she had treated too many young aurors with serious injuries and wanted to know why training had to be so dangerous. If she did contact him later, he would get Cho to write a polite but firm letter reminding her that apprehending violent criminals without any training was even more dangerous.

Hurrying away, he glanced back for another check on Lucius' safety and in doing so almost collided with Alastor Moody.

"What's up, Snape?" he growled, magic eye swivelling to see where Severus had been looking and spotting Lucius with the handsome minister. "Worried lover-boy's about to run off with something younger and prettier?"

"No," he replied, scathingly. "Just worried someone he wronged in the past might try and hex him into the middle of next week."

"Wish they would," said Moody, though without any real spite. Snape let the comment go, as he had noticed that not many people had chosen to linger near the tough old auror and perhaps now would be a good time to speak to him about what Hagrid had said. Snape felt faintly sick as he reflected once more on the idea of Moody being his father. Something cowardly in his head was urging him to drop the whole matter, to let sleeping dragons lie and live with a horrible suspicion rather than definite knowledge of a horrible truth.

But another voice was insisting that since he had come this far, undergone so many trials as he and Lucius dashed up and down the country investigating, he really should get things settled.

"Looking a bit green there, Snape. Don't tell me you've drunk Ministry issue Chardonnay?" Moody pointedly uncorked his hip flask and swigged noisily.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Then what's the problem?"

Taking a deep breath, Snape checked around for eavesdroppers and whispered:

"Hagrid said that my mother was an auror."

Moody stared at him for a long moment, the false eye strangely still. He took another drink from his flask, swallowed and licked his lips in the silence.

"Not true," he said at last.

"He said she trained with you, back in the '50s," argued Snape.

"Aye, she did, old Loose-Tongue's right about that."

"So why did she need training if she wasn't with the MLE?" Snape's mouth went dry as he spoke, dreading what sort of "training" Eileen and young Moody had been doing if they weren't on auror business. "And what about the attack? There was some kind of disaster..?"

"You're like her in so many ways," Moody interrupted. "Your hair, your directness, your tenacity…"

"Mad-eye!" hissed Snape, not about to let him start rambling as Hagrid had. Ignoring him, Moody continued.

"…the way you smirk, your deviousness, the choices you made…"

"Look, this isn't helpful," he said, then stopped. "Choices?"

Moody grinned, showing gaps where teeth had been smashed out during decades of combat.

"Proper chip off the old block, you are."

Hating the feeling of being toyed with, Snape fought a burst of frustration and checked that they were not being overheard once more. He stepped closer to the irritating wizard, who may or may not have been his father.

"What choices are you talking about? How am I a chip off the old block?"

"Dear oh dear," tutted Moody, thoroughly enjoying himself. "You're not much of an investigator are you? You mean to say that you've been running around for a week since you were told your DNA was artificial and you still haven't discovered that your mother was a spy?"

x

Someone prodded Lucius in the back and he swung round, ready for fight or flight. Fortunately, neither was required.

"Hello, Narcissa."

"Nice to see you," she air-kissed his cheek. "Actually, I should have said, nice to see you _here._"

"Severus thought it was time we appeared together," he smiled down at his ex-wife.

"Ah, yes. I remember my first function as official consort after marrying Arthur. So nerve-wracking - well done for not hiding in the lavatory! Although, if you'll excuse my saying so, you don't look very together at the moment."

"Oh, he's here somewhere," Lucius looked around, straining to spot Snape through the throng.

"Over there in the corner, with Mad-eye Moody. Talking about work, I suppose," she said carelessly.

Lucius choked, took a sip of wine to cover his reaction then choked again for a different reason.

"Merlin! This tastes like cat's piss," he coughed.

"Oh dear, I should have told you. Rule number one of modern ministry parties: never drink the plonk. Gone are the days when no questions were asked about the catering budget and the champagne corks popped into the early hours. It's all cost-cutting and economies now to fund Shacklebolt's economic reforms."

She continued, yet Lucius hardly heard. Severus was standing very close to Moody and they were locked in conversation, leading Malfoy to conclude that the Paternity Question was being addressed. Burning with curiosity he wanted to hurry over and hear what was being said, but knew that Moody's hatred for him might make him resent such an interruption and clam up, perhaps ruining Severus' delicate interrogation of his prickly subject. He turned back to Narcissa instead, trying to concentrate.

"So," she lowered her voice. "Did you tell Severus what I found out about Septimus Weasley?"

"Yes," Lucius wished they hadn't involved her in all this. He didn't doubt her discretion, it was simply that Severus would hate anyone else knowing, even if he managed to conceal it. Then another worrying thought struck him. "Did you tell Arthur?"

"No. I thought that would be up to Severus."

"Thank you," he said, relieved. "Although I should mention that Hagrid thinks Eileen and Septimus's relationship was purely platonic."

"Really? Kreacher was so insistent about the scandal they created."

"There is sometimes smoke without fire," Lucius pointed out.

"Hmm. I suppose house-elves do get carried away sometimes," she admitted.

In the excitement and bustle of rushing to the party, Lucius had completely forgotten Minerva McGonagall's strange mention of Dobby knowing all about Severus's mother. He hadn't seen the hysterical and possibly unhinged elf since Harry Potter had tricked him into giving it clothes, years ago and the little ingrate had promptly zapped him across the room. He had no idea what became of it.

"You didn't see Dobby when you were at the elf retirement home, I suppose?" he asked Narcissa.

"Dobby? He works at Hogwarts. For pay, like a human. He's very friendly with Harry."

Aware of Narcissa's tenderness for the Potter boy, Lucius suppressed his natural reaction to the notion of elves earning wages and making friends with humans. He must remember to tell Peggy, proud and loyal house-elf to a long line of heads of Magical Law Enforcement when they got back home. She would be amusingly outraged at this insult to elvish tradition.

His eyes automatically flicked back to the corner where Severus and Moody had been standing, but they were no longer there. Excusing himself from Cissa, he searched the room, then when he failed to find either of them, realised that they must have found a more private place to hold their very private conversation. Or so he hoped. At least he couldn't hear the sound of shouting or duelling, so the two cantankerous wizards hadn't retired in order to fight about any new revelation. He came out into the corridor and checked all the corners, then the bathroom, to no avail.

Curiosity driving him wild, Lucius knew it would be no use returning to the party in order to make small talk, not when he would have half a mind on what Moody had said to Severus. It was so frustrating being excluded from proceedings like this. He made his way back into the ballroom and pulled Narcissa away from a group of her colleagues, who looked him up and down like a museum exhibit, and back out of the door.

"I have a feeling Dobby will refuse to speak to me," he said, wincing slightly at the memory of their past interactions. If only the creature had not been so annoying, he wouldn't have had to be so harsh…

"I think you're right," agreed Narcissa sardonically, who had always nagged him about mistreating the elves.

"Might he respond to you?"

"Perhaps," she said. "If Harry has mentioned that I try to look after him in an almost step-motherly way - when he lets me, that is. Why do you need him?"

"This business of Severus' paternity. Can you come to Hogwarts now and try to talk to Dobby? Please?" He knew that he sounded crazy, babbling about the elf he had loathed in his desperation to be busy and useful until Severus delivered his news from Moody. The urgency must have shown on his face, as Cissa began walking towards the floo atrium. Mindful of the bad weather last time he had been up to Scotland, Lucius tried an _accio_ and was relieved when one of Severus' cloaks flew towards them from its peg in the office upstairs.

"Sounds as though it's important," she hazarded.

"I don't actually know," he admitted. "It might be."

x

Snape hauled Mad-eye out of the ballroom and pushed a secret panel in the wall of the corridor. A door appeared and they dashed through into the end of a dusty secret passage.

When the door was closed and warded behind them, and they had both made sure they were alone, Snape shouted:

"A SPY!"

"Dumbledore had just begun to form his network of informers into what later became known as the Order of the Phoenix. He knew Voldemort was starting to get organised and his early associates had plans for violence," Moody seemed to be enjoying telling the story. "Eileen Snape's job was to watch Abraxas Malfoy, who was known to be a friend of Tom Riddle and a ruthless man. She got close to him and reported everything back to Albus. I gave her training in duelling and basic auror skills because she was still a kid really, messing around in very dangerous business."

Abraxas Malfoy. Snape's stomach plummeted.

"When was this?" he asked weakly.

"Oh, '58, '59. Around the time Malfoy's wife died. She used that as an excuse to get close to him and to wee Lucius then hung around the house snooping."

His mother had been "hanging around" Malfoy Manor bonding with Abraxas in 1959, the year Severus had been conceived. Suddenly the idea of Moody being his father looked much less horrible than it had a few minutes earlier, when compared with the possibility of being an illegitimate Malfoy.

"You spent a lot of time with her?" he pressed on, fatalistically.

"A fair bit. Riddle fled the country after killing a pro-muggle lobbyist who Albus knew, blasting my leg off and getting hexed by your mum. She fought him off single-handedly at the age of nineteen," he smiled and shook his head in admiration. "A damn fine duellist, she was. We did quite a lot of work for Albus after that, when the idiots at the MLE were still refusing to give me my job back because they said I was unfit to be an auror. We corresponded with international agents so that they would let us know as soon as they saw Riddle surface again, which he did eventually, as you know. There wasn't a full-scale war back then, but she and I helped lay a lot of important groundwork which was useful when everything began for real in the seventies."

Barely able to take it all in, Snape leaned back against the cold wall for support.

"Merlin," was all he could manage, overcome by pride at Eileen's teenage achievements and guilt that he had never known and written her off as a mediocre housewife with no particular skill.

"It was a tragedy that she died so young," added Moody with an unusual flash of gentleness. "She was probably intending to tell you all this when you were an adult, old enough to understand and not blab to your housemates. But she didn't get the chance."

The sadness of it was not something Snape wanted to deal with here, now, in the presence of Moody. With a trick he learned through occlumency, he cast around inside his head for all the messy strands of emotion, pressed them together into a hard ball and pushed it to the very back of his consciousness, leaving his brain tidy and able to function clearly.

"And my real father?" he asked, not wanting this exhausting wait any longer, clinging to one theory after another while his identity fluttered in the breeze.

Moody whistled.

"You mean, you still haven't found that out either?"

"Obviously not," he said through clenched teeth, bracing himself. "Do you know who he was?"

"Yes," said Moody.

The ball of occluded emotion began rolling around Snape's brain until he closed his eyes and willed it back, down, away from the imminent bombshell. His fingers wandered nervously to trace the scar on his cheek.

"Is it you, Alastor?" he asked.

"Me? No! No, of course not!" Moody whipped out his flask again for some liquid sustenance and this time offered it to Snape afterwards, who was very glad to accept. When the burning in his throat subsided enough to permit speech, he wiped his eyes and cleared his throat.

"So, if it wasn't you - who in Merlin's name was it?"

Moody swore and began to pace up and down the confined passageway, scowling and frowning as though searching for a place to start. He stopped, took a long slug of firewhiskey, each gulp in his throat loud as an earthquake to Severus' desperate ears.

"Just tell me," he begged.

"It's complicated," he rasped, still striding back and forth. "I can't just give you the name and let you run off and come to all the wrong conclusions. You need to be aware of all the circumstances…"

"Moody," said Snape, in a deathly quiet voice. "I may be a homosexual, but I am perfectly familiar with the circumstances required for the begetting of a child."

"Ah, but that's the rub! These weren't exactly normal circumstances. He wouldn't tell me everything at the time and I'm damned if I can remember the details correctly nearly fifty years on."

"Just the name. I don't care about the rest. Just give me his fucking name."

"No. I owe it to your mother not to let you get hold of the wrong end of the broomstick," he stopped pacing at last, decisively pulling down the silence wards and throwing open the door. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"Hogwarts."

xxx

***1959***

The portraits had stopped sneering and Eileen no longer got lost on her play-expeditions with Lucius. His mother had been dead for more than six months now, not that he seemed to mind. Abraxas and Lucretia's policy of not letting their son get too close to a parent he would inevitably lose to Grindelwald's terrible curse had worked. Eileen wondered how the doomed witch had been able to bear not to touch him, to play with him and listen to the amazing things he said, for although she wasn't his mother, Eileen adored the wonderful little boy and missed him when they were apart.

It appeared to be mutual. With Abraxas so often away at the Ministry, Lucius was always delighted to have human company and welcomed her with kisses and much bouncing up and down.

She had grown closer to Abraxas too. When she visited after Lucius' bedtime, they would talk like old friends, sharing far more than a pair of guarded Slytherins ought thanks to Eileen's skills at drawing out potentially useful information to feed to Dumbledore. If she felt a moment's guilt over this betrayal, then the memory of the night when she witnessed death and violent attacks on her friends choked it down at once. There was no proof, naturally, but the longer she spent in Malfoy's company, the more convinced she became that he had been the cloaked figure who cursed Septimus impotent as he fled the house. There was also the possibility that he had also killed Mabberly, or had assisted Riddle in the murder.

All of wizarding Britain was on the lookout for Tom Riddle, but half a year later, no one had found him. She and Moody had worked tirelessly on the international network of Dumbledore's contacts too, drafting letters, sifting through piles of unsubstantiated sightings and evidence of him. Alastor said grimly that their quarry would be too clever to strew clues around and it seemed he was right.

In exchange for Abraxas' confidences, Eileen shared some of her own thoughts - deliberately at first, then easily, as her somewhat sinister friend proved a very good listener.

Tobias still required his dinner to be ready as soon as he got in from work, but things had changed in Spinner's End. Now, he got home from the factory, downed the meal in three or four gulps, ran up the stairs to style his hair and then left, spending no more than twenty minutes in the house. He would return very late, drunk and bruised with barely a word for her.

Gossip was all the Scoursby womenfolk had - it cost nothing and formed the only bit of excitement in their drudgery-filled days of scrubbing floors and smacking kids. They said Toby was one of the Spinner's End lads who jumped into Cadge Whitehouse's car and drove the bleak moor road over to the dancehall in Drummedge to drink, listen to music and inevitably pick fights with the Drummedge lads.

Baffled as to why anyone would choose to do such a thing rather than spend time at home with a wife he had loved only months earlier, Eileen stuck out her chin and denied it. The Spinner's End women exchanged meaningful glances and puffed their cigarettes with exaggerated attitude. Stalking home after one such confrontation outside the butcher's, Eileen couldn't fail to hear the stage-whisper of "poor deluded cow."

"What have I done wrong, Abraxas?" Eileen couldn't believe she heard herself saying. Just a year earlier the idea of sharing such intimate thoughts with Abraxas bloody Malfoy, ex-school bully, spoiled lord of the manor and probably future minister of magic, would have been perfectly ridiculous. Though by the same token, the idea of Toby no longer loving her would have been just as remote. Speaking with anger so the tears didn't have chance to come, she ploughed on. "It's not that I've lost my husband to another woman - I've lost him to drink and violence and this thing the muggles are always talking about now, this rock and roll."

"What in Merlin's name is that?"

"Music, I think, and dancing and putting potions on your hair so that it all sits on the top of your head."

"Sounds positively primal," sneered Abraxas, pouring them both more tea. "It rather sounds like your husband got frightened by adult responsibilities and is now trying to drink and party his way out of them, if you'll forgive my bluntness." Abraxas followed her eyes to the recently completed portrait of little Lucius and couldn't help smiling back when he gave his father and their friend a mischievous smirk. "So no chance of your husband being brought home by the patter of tiny feet?"

"I hardly see him now. When I do, he's not very responsive," she sighed, not adding, _which is why I now have so much time to spend here at the Manor and on other work for Dumbledore's Order. That's not going to conceive any children._

In the silence which followed, Eileen convinced herself that she had gone too far for even the strange intimate-yet-platonic relationship the widower and the blood-traitor, (traitor twice over, if only he knew it) had developed. There was no reason this man with the whole world at his feet would want to hear about the failed marriage of a plain Prince girl and a working class muggle. When Abraxas called an elf and whispered something into its pointed ear, she put down her cup and prepared to be asked to leave forever.

The elf returned and handed him a box, which he took slowly and turned over in his hands for a few seconds, thinking deeply about something.

"Is it being the right one, Master?" prompted the elf, with terrified obsequiousness. "Is bad Dobby making big stupid mistake again?"

"Only by still being in my presence," he snapped back carelessly. The creature disappeared with a squeak. Abraxas lifted his head apologetically. "It's the young one. Nanny's son. She's doing her best to train him but her first duty is to concentrate on raising Lucius. No wonder he's hopeless as a servant."

Eileen had encountered the hapless Dobby before at the Manor, once rescuing him from his formidable mother who was punishing some misdemeanour by pasting him around the head with a coal-scuttle, cursing him for a wicked and unnatural elf. It was wrong to interfere with such things, she knew, but the sight had been so distressing she had been unable to withhold the single command which would end the pain. Dobby had stared at her with total adoration after that.

"I don't mind telling you that I think this husband of yours sounds like a thorough bad lot. I particularly dislike his fondness for violence," Abraxas said grimly. He leaned forward in his chair and stretched out the hand holding the box. "Here. I want you to have this." Automatically, she reached out and took it, then froze at the sight of the name on it.

"Caboodles? You're giving me jewellery?" she asked in confusion. He got up and turned his back to her, clenching his hands behind his back pensively.

"It was a present for my late wife. A necklace. I chose the design especially for her, but she died before it was completed. I forgot to cancel the order and they delivered it two weeks after we buried her."

"I can't take this," Eileen put the box on the coffee table. He turned back and she recognised the determined set of his mouth.

"Please take it. Muggles are pigs and this Snape sounds like the very worst kind. I know your family cut you off without a knut when you married against their wishes, so I want you to keep this safe in case you ever need to escape. They're genuine diamonds and emeralds so you can run as far as you like and start making a new life if ever that becomes necessary. I am not arguing about this so put it in your pocket now."

"Abraxas…" words failed Eileen, so she resorted to shaking her head dumbly in refusal.

"I don't want it," he said. "I hope you never need it, but it's there in case you do."

xxx

Frau Kost, head librarian at the University of the Magical Arts in Heidelberg cleared her throat very softly. The man at the desk in front of her started as though he had been so deep in his studies he had forgotten where he was.

"Please excuse me, Herr Professor Smith," she whispered. "The library is closing in fifteen minutes."

"Thank you, Ma'am" he said, with a slight bow of the head. Frau Kost nodded back and reflected to herself how polite and charming the visiting American scholars always were. As she walked away, she wondered whether it would be wholly inappropriate if a widowed lady librarian offered to show a handsome guest of the university some of the sights of the town. Probably, she decided reluctantly.

Tom Riddle resisted the urge to throw the last book he had been studying across the room in frustration. After three days of intensive research in this dusty dungeon of a place he had made no progress whatever. He simply did not have time to waste on wading through tome after tome of nonsense. He had made certain there was no danger of Professor Smith's body ever being found, but there was always a chance that one of the other academics might have known him and wonder why, if he was signing in and out of the library every day, he hadn't dropped in one evening to say hello.

He pulled Smith's satchel up onto the desk and began stuffing his (mostly empty) notebooks and (mostly useless) parchments inside when a waft of air from his irritable packing caused a page of the still-open book he had lately been studying to turn. A phrase caught his eye and he pulled it towards him.

Interesting.

In no way related to his infuriating search for clues about the Deathly Hallows, but very interesting nonetheless. As he read on, a slow smile spread across his face and a glint of something too evil to ever have flickered in the eyes of the late Professor Smith caused a few hyper-sensitised mood manuscripts on the other side of the building to shiver with apprehension.

"Oh yes," he croaked, voice slightly hoarse from having hardly spoken all day. "Albus Dumbledore, you vile old freak of nature, I've got you. This will bring you down faster and harder than _Avada Kedavra._" Quickly and quietly, he performed a copying spell and closed the book, tucking the blueprint for his precious revenge inside Smith's cotton shirt. "And even better, because death is too good for you. After this, what's left of your life won't be worth living."

x


	20. Chapter 20

Note: Some of this chapter is based on JKR's Black Family Tree (Google will bring you up a nicely drawn one). According to this, Orion & Walburga Black were the parents of Sirius and Regulus. Druella and Cygnus had Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa. The three girls are a good few years older than their cousins.

Recap: 

1959 - Eileen ran off and married muggle oaf Tobias after refusing her parents' choice of husband - the much older, Quidditch-obsessed bore, Charlus Potter (eventual grandfather of Guess Who - see the Family Tree again. All these purebloods are _well_ inbred. I dread to think how many toes Sirius had). Tom Riddle has sworn to be revenged on Dumbledore for thwarting his early plans for world domination, intimidating him as a boy etc etc. Since Albus chased him all over the country after duelling Eileen the night of Mabberley's murder, he hasn't been able to set foot in the UK for fear of arrest. This irks him.

2007 - Lucius and Narcissa have gone to Hogwarts to ask their ex-house elf Dobby if he has any information about the identity of Snape's father, after McGonagall hinted he might.

Severus and Moody have gone to Hogwarts for reasons Mad-eye will not elaborate upon, however the old auror admits he knows Who's The Daddy. (Yes, by the end of this chapter, so will you. Sorry to have kept you dangling for so long.)

xxx

1959

"Owl, Daddy!" shouted Lucius, pointing upwards with delight. "Thank you, I can see that," sighed Abraxas, already weary of his son's latest obsession. "It's a barn owl, Daddy!"

"Very good."

"Know what my favourite owl is, Daddy?"

"You're about to tell me," guessed Abraxas with resignation, detaching the package from the bird's leg. The owl looked exhausted, as though it had flown a long way and when he recognised the handwriting on the accompanying letter, Abraxas pursed his lips. It had been six months since they had last communicated and six months since that dreadful night when Malfoy could have lost everything due to Riddle's incompetence. Clearly his old friend was up to something again.

"Eagle owls!" shrieked the little boy. "They have bright orange eyes and biiiig ears…"

_Would you deliver this to its intended recipient with complete anonymity? Not fatal to human life, just to over-inflated reputations and careers which have gone on for far too long. Await interesting results._

_Still no luck finding out the identity of that bloody girl. The scar she gave me won't fade. She will regret it one day._

Gingerly, Abraxas opened the package and peered inside at the innocent-looking contents. Fatal to over-inflated reputations, Tom had said. Abraxas pocketed the bag and began to plan the best way to fulfil his task, smirking as he tried to imagine what on earth was going to happen now.

2007

Narcissa and Lucius stepped out into Hogwarts' floo room to find that they had arrived in Scotland on a gloriously warm summer's day. The cloak which Lucius had hastily summoned from Severus' office before leaving the Ministry was threatening to cook him, even inside the cool stone walls of the castle, so he pulled it off and folded it over his arm, grumbling about unpredictable weather.

Headmistress Sprout seemed very suspicious of their motives for visiting the school, but agreed to summon Dobby and after a little persuasion even granted them a small private room for the meeting.

"What is _you_ doing here?" spat the elf the moment he popped into their presence. Eyes narrowed and bony fingers clenched into little fists, he presented the perfect picture of hostility. Lucius knew he needed to be very careful if he wanted any information from the creature he had so mistreated in the old days. He dropped into a crouch in order to bring his face level with Dobby's. Dobby reared back in disgust at the proximity but let him speak.

"Thank you for agreeing to see us," he began. It felt strange to be beholden to an elf, particularly this useless, treacherous one, but if he could help Severus in his quest for his real father then Lucius would grovel. "I'm sorry to disturb you while you're working."

"You is a bad, wicked, evil man and you is having no reason for coming here and being near innocent children!" yelled Dobby, flattening his ears back against his head.

Lucius looked plaintively at Narcissa, who lowered herself onto the floor beside him, not looking very hopeful.

"Dobby, I'm sorry we had to come. We won't be here for very long and then we'll go away and never bother you or the school again." The elf softened a very little when she spoke, perhaps remembering that she had never been quite so unpleasant to him, or perhaps because of some positive thing his friend and idol, Harry Potter, had said about his new pseudo-stepmother. When he remained quiet for a minute without throwing any new insults at the ex-couple, she continued tentatively. "Professor McGonagall asked us to come," she stretched the truth.

"Very good lady, very nice to Dobby and Harry Potter," the elf admitted.

"She said that you knew Professor Snape's mother," continued Lucius.

"Good Professor Snape! Clever and brave and wonderful and Dobby was having said some horrid, unfair things when we was all thinking that he was _killing_ Professor Dumbledore out of evilness!" Instantly, Dobby began wailing in misery, blowing his snotty nose on the odd orange tunic he was wearing, which had possibly been fashioned out of a child-size Chudley Cannons supporter's robe. Tears were pouring so readily from his bulbous eyes that they dripped off the end of his chin onto the floor. "So brave to do that, Dobby was understanding after. Good, good Professor Snape!"

Lucius and Narcissa exchanged a very quick glance. This devotion to Severus looked promising.

"Dobby, we need to ask you about Professor Snape's mother so we can help him," said Lucius, shifting slightly as the crouch became uncomfortable. "Eileen Snape."

"OH!!!" exclaimed the elf, so loudly it made Narcissa jump and Lucius' left ear ring. "Mistress Eileen! Good, kind, Mistress Eileen! She very nice lady! Very nice to Dobby when Dobby was a elfling!"

"So you knew her?" Lucius tried to edge away in case of further threats to his hearing.

"Yes, of course," said Dobby, staring as though Lucius were rather dim. "Like you did. She was being our friend, mine as well as yours. When we was both very small."

There was total silence for about five seconds, then his knee gave a crack of protest and he stiffly leaned sideways and sat on the cold flagstones.

"I never met Eileen Snape," Malfoy said quietly.

"You did!" said Dobby indignantly. "You was always playing with her. She was reading you stories, playing seeky-hidey, she was even giving you bath sometimes."

"Nanny the elf used to bath me, Dobby" Lucius shook his head. "Your mother Nanny brought me up."

"Yes," huffed Dobby in exasperation. "But Mistress Eileen was spending lots of time with you too after your mummy was dying. Acherlly, Mistress Eileen was being very very good friend to you and Master Abraxas."

Narcissa's eyes went wide for a fraction of a second before she controlled the alarming thought which had entered her head, but Lucius spotted the reaction and glared at her. She looked away, colouring, and refused to turn back so he was left to continue the conversation alone.

"Eileen and my father were friends?" His throat felt dry and he was suddenly very glad to be sitting down, albeit rather painfully.

"Oh yes, she was being at the Manor all the time. Master Abraxas was liking to have her there, very much. They was spending so much time together. He gave her very pretty, very dear trinket for present because he was liking her so much," the elf leaned forward as though about to impart an awesome piece of information. "It was coming from Caboodle's. Dobby is reading the name on the box. Caboodle's was Master Abraxas' favourite place to buy shiny presents."

Lucius could no longer listen. He flung Severus' cloak down onto the floor and with trembling hands tried to locate the pockets amongst the heavy folds of material.

"Lucius?" asked Narcissa with great concern. "What…?" His fingers closed around the box Snape had been carrying around for the past few days and which Lucius had assumed to contain an engagement ring, because he had thought that they were going to get married. Apparently, he had been mistaken.

The box sprang open with a click to reveal not a ring, but a sparkling emerald and diamond pendant on a white gold chain.

"That's it!" squeaked Dobby.

"No," breathed Lucius, stricken.

"Yes," Dobby corrected him. "Master Abraxas was buying it for your mummy, but she was dying before Caboodle's delivering it. So he kept it for a bit then gave it to Mistress Eileen, because they was very very very good friends."

With the very last shred of his hope, Lucius managed one final question, delivered as a plea from his wretched position on the floor.

"When was this?"

"Hm. Long time ago. Dobby is thinking springtime of 1959."

Severus was born on 9th January 1960. About nine months later. Lucius' eyes slid closed as the full horror of what he was hearing crashed down on him.

Severus' father was his own father, Abraxas Malfoy, which meant that Lucius' lover was also his illegitimate half-brother.

xxx

Snape and Moody strode and limped up the path to Hogwarts main entrance without saying a word to each other. Snape didn't trust himself to speak without yelling at the old man to just bloody well tell him without all this unbearable suspense and Moody kept quiet because he refused to show that he was not as young as he used to be and the long apparition followed by the brisk walk had worn him out.

Although the day was gloriously summery and the grounds were alive with birdsong, flowers bobbing in the gentle breeze and the sun glinting off the lake in the distance, there was no sign of any students. Snape remembered that on such day towards the end of term there would invariably be picnics, games and general cavorting on the lawns as everyone relaxed and prepared for the long holiday ahead. When they reach the castle, however, all became clear.

The dreaded wooden signs were in place: "SILENCE: Exams in Progress". Severus was shocked that he had remembered it all wrong - the best weather was always when you were stuck inside, sweating through OWLs, NEWTs or the end of year tests. When these were over and you were free and life was easy, it would invariably pour with rain.

They made their way as quietly as possible up to the Headmistress' tower, halting in front of the gargoyle. Surreptitiously, Moody leaned against the wall to catch his breath.

"I don't know the password," hissed Snape in irritation. "But we're from the MLE and it's very important." The sculpture guarding the staircase refused to budge. "Come on! We haven't got all day you know."

"Have you tried the magic word?" said Sprout's voice behind them. Snape wheeled round and raised his eyebrows.

"You must be joking?" he sneered.

She smiled and shrugged in a way that made Moody chuckle and made Snape want to arrest her. He turned back to the gargoyle.

"Please?" he tried. The creature moved aside at once.

"Are you here to speak to Dobby too? Because…" began Sprout.

"I am not sure why we're here," interrupted Snape. "Are we here to see Dobby, Mad-eye?"

"No," said Moody. "I apologise for asking this, Ma'am, but it's crucial that you leave us alone in your office for half an hour."

Looking decidedly unimpressed, Sprout paused at the entrance and folded her arms across her chest.

"This is most irregular," she said.

"Please, Pomona," said Snape, now desperate not to wait any longer for the answer he needed. "This is top secret and I'm afraid not even you can know. I'll owe you a very big favour. There must be something you want from the Ministry - I can speak to Shacklebolt about getting funding for the new Quidditch stands? A new greenhouse? Potions equipment?"

"Well," she looked thoughtful. "There are one or two small matters…"

"Excellent. Send me a list," Snape pulled her aside and propelled Moody into the office, closing the door and warding it.

Professor Sprout had made the place her own. Aside from the portraits and certain pieces of ancient furniture, the study was very different from the way it had been in Albus Dumbledore's time. Despite the completely rearranged layout, the new carpet, the fat cat dozing in the in-tray and the houseplants on most flat surfaces, there were still too many emotional associations to make Severus comfortable here.

He turned to Moody, who had spotted a chintz armchair beneath the snoozing portrait of Dumbledore and was sprawling in it, swigging from his ever-present hip flask.

"I assume we are here to speak to the painting of Albus?" said Snape. It was typical, of course, that even after death, the infuriating old man would know everything.

"You'd better cast a muffilato charm," said Moody. "I doubt you want Nigellus gossiping all over the place." There was a huff from the other side of the room, from the long-dead headmaster resenting either the intimation or the thwarting.

"Albus," called Moody. "Stop pretending to be asleep."

With an affected snore, the painted shade of the great man awoke with exaggerated slowness, making a great show of yawning and stretching.

"Why, Alastor! How nice to see you! And Severus too, what a treat!"

After several years, the pain of what had to happen that night on the Astronomy tower had faded somewhat, but it could still twinge unpleasantly. He had obeyed the last order, just as he had all the others, knowing that in ending Albus' life he was probably about to destroy his own. As it turned out, he had survived and done well. The fact shouldn't have made him feel so guilty, given that the old manipulator's heartless plan could easily have caused him lifelong imprisonment or a Dementor's kiss.

Nevertheless, he owed Albus everything for allowing him to switch sides the first time around, as well as providing a job, home and a life when he needed it most. And he had been a good friend to a young man who had had no others.

"Hello," Snape said to the painting, voice rather thick with feeling.

"What can I do to help my dear boys today?" he peered at them. "My, my, Severus. That scar does suit you. A veritable badge of honour!"

"Albus," Moody dragged himself to his feet and tried to take a last sip of Dutch courage, but found the flask was empty. He tossed it down onto the chair in annoyance and cleared his throat. "Tobias Snape wasn't Severus' father."

"Really? Goodness!" exclaimed Dumbledore, moving to the edge of his seat with interest. "Then who was?"

"Albus," said Moody again. "You prided yourself on knowing everything. Surely you remember his date of birth?" Dumbledore stroked his beard playfully for a moment, pretending to consider, then shook his head and smiled winningly.

"Of course I do, dear. No matter how hard you tried to pretend it wasn't your birthday, I would always make sure you received a musical card, an elf chorus of 'Happy Birthday to You' and a nice woolly vest…"

"1960, Albus. January 1960," Moody interrupted angrily.

The benign grin remained in place for a second, then slid away slowly like melting wax until Dumbledore's mouth lay slack in a very unusual expression of bewilderment. He removed his half-moon spectacles, polished them carefully for a second on his long sleeve (although, Severus thought later, surely being painted, they could not have become dirty?), replaced them on his crooked nose and stared down at Moody, thunderstruck. His cheery voice had dropped an octave lower when he said:

"Alastor?"

Moody held his face in his hands. Confused by these meaningless exchanges, Snape put his hands on his hips and demanded in no uncertain terms that either man should stop messing about with his identity and start explaining in plain English whatever it was that they knew.

Still staring stupidly, Dumbledore paid no attention and just whimpered Moody's name again in that low, defeated voice.

"Tell him," Mad-eye said at last, "I'll go and wait outside. It's between the two of you."

"Tell me _what!?_" shouted Snape at his retreating back.

"Severus?" murmured Dumbledore. "Come here." He slid out of the painted armchair and knelt in the very foreground of his picture so that they were as close as they could be. Snape was alarmed to see tears brimming in his bright blue eyes.

"Oh, my dearest boy," he said thickly. "What a terrible waste. If only I'd known sooner, when you were young, or at least while I was still alive, I, I…"

"Known what?" Snape edged closer, disturbed to see this man lost for words.

The tears fell properly then, in glistening silver oils they trickled down his pink cheeks and into the white fluff of his beard, where they sparkled like tiny stars. He sniffed and let out a sob so loud it made the frame rattle against the wall.

"If Tobias wasn't your father, dear Severus, then I'm afraid it must have been me."

xxx

xxx

xxx

1959

"I've got some gossip for you!" said Eileen, greeting Dumbledore on Hogwarts' front steps as they met for their weekly debriefing.

"And I have some for you, my dear," he grinned. "Unless you've already seen the Evening Prophet?"

"No, not yet."

"Goody," he folded the paper and tucked it under his arm. "Come on. It's a beautiful clear night. Let's go up to the Astronomy Tower and see if we can read our future in the stars."

It was towards the end of the Easter holidays and the castle was deserted. A handful of students were probably around somewhere, those with no family or with an unhealthy attachment to the school library, but on the long walk up to the highest tower they neither saw nor heard another living soul.

"My poor old knees," puffed Albus as they reached the top of the final narrow staircase. "I'd forgotten what a trek it was to get all the way here. Just as well I brought along some refreshments." He produced a pink and white striped paper bag from somewhere in his robes and waved it at her.

"You have a reputation for always eating those lemon drops," she laughed.

"You would be surprised at some of the things I have a reputation for," he replied, waggling his bushy eyebrows. "But these are actually a special type of butterscotch. Horace sent them to me this morning by owl."

They both took a sweet. The taste was unlike any butterscotch Eileen had ever tried, but there was something creamy and slightly addictive about it. It was odd to think of Slughorn making experimental confectionery during school holidays, although whoever knew what teachers got up to when term ended? Professor Dumbledore turned out to be involved in a lot of very interesting activities, but then he was hardly an ordinary teacher.

"Now, Albus," she said. "You had some gossip?"

"Ladies first, my dear," he smiled.

"All right. Abraxas told me that Walburga Black is pregnant."

"Oh, my!" He gasped, grinning, then helped himself to another sweet and offered the bag to her.

"I never thought this would happen," she took one and popped it in her mouth. "She and Orion have been married for over fifteen years, and what with them being cousins, I imagined it wouldn't be possible."

"One never can tell," he hummed. "I suppose they had to try really hard - Cygnus and Druella Black only having three daughters would have meant that the precious family name might have died out."

"Oh, that reminds me. Apparently, Druella Black has a plan for betrothing little Lucius to her middle girl, Andromeda. Malfoy would have preferred the eldest, but there's a wizard's bond already which Cygnus made with Rupert Lestrange when they were drunk after the Quidditch world cup final."

"I wish purebloods would let the children decide their spouses for themselves. We're halfway through the twentieth century, for Merlin's sake. They're only brewing up trouble," Dumbledore shook his head and huffed a great sigh. "All of which brings me neatly to my bit of gossip." He unfolded the newspaper and flipped through until he reached the Births, Marriages and Deaths page near the back. His long index finger indicated a snapshot of a beaming, balding bridegroom, whose fleshy cheeks were so flushed with nerves, champagne or love he had all the appearance of a beetroot in a dress robe.

"Charlus Potter!" shrieked Eileen in utter amazement. "Married!"

"Now, now, my dear, don't be upset," he teased. "I know you secretly wish you had let your parents bundle you off with Puddlemere's greatest ex-chaser!"

She grabbed the paper and took a look at the bride, only too aware that it could have been herself standing next to the formerly muscular Quidditch star (who had run to fat approximately five minutes after his final match), had she not decided to stand up to her father's desperate plotting and choose a husband of her own.

"Dorea Black? But she must be pushing forty too!"

"Positively ancient," commented Albus sarcastically.

"She could at least have taken off those dreadful spectacles for the wedding photo," tutted Eileen, ignoring him.

"They say love is blind," quipped Albus.

**And then, out of nowhere, something happened.**

Suddenly, Eileen felt cold and uncomfortable.

Her vision was blurred and it took her a long time to string together enough thought to register that she was uncomfortable because she was lying on a hard stone floor.

And she was cold because she was naked.

As she sat up, the room lurched and she blinked and blinked at the large, dark brown object hanging over her head until it finally swam into focus and revealed itself to be the enormous school telescope, its polished mahogany surface at an odd angle just inches from her face. Taking stock of all the information she had collected so far, this meant that she was sitting on the floor, naked, up Hogwarts' Astronomy Tower. This, she knew, was not only not good, it was astonishing and totally unexpected.

There was an ear-splitting scream.

She whirled round and found herself face to face with Albus Dumbledore, whose mouth was wide open as he screamed in absolute horror, and who was also sitting on the floor, also naked. Eileen screamed too, then there was a breathless, desperate scramble as both of them tried to simultaneously cover themselves up while trying to find what on earth had happened to their clothing.

Eileen's dress was in a heap under a student's desk and she quickly yanked it over her head, while Albus located his purple outer-robe caught on the sill of the blackboard and pulled it on in two seconds flat, back to front as well as inside-out.

Albus and Eileen turned back to each other once this modicum of modesty had been restored, both staring with wild eyes.

"What on earth just happened?" gasped Albus.

"I was hoping you'd know," said Eileen. "The last thing I remember was talking about Charlus Potter's wedding."

He nodded vigorously. "Exactly. Think. Try as hard as you can."

She closed her eyes and something came. Not a clear picture, more like the swirling emotions left over from a startling dream she couldn't quite remember. There was heat. There was desire, then passion and desperate need, followed by towering passion, screams of ecstasy coming from her throat yet unlike any sound she'd ever knowingly made before and then crashing waves of pleasure so strong that even this distorted memory of them drew out a small groan of desire.

She clapped a hand over her mouth and looked at Albus, clutching at his beard as he experienced a vivid flashback of his own. Her body felt bruised, she registered for the first time. There were grazes on her knees and elbows and she was sticky and pleasantly sore and she had clearly just had rampant sexual intercourse with wrinkly, possibly homosexual centenarian Albus Dumbledore. NONE OF IT MADE ANY SENSE!

"I don't understand," said Dumbledore, shaking his head in despair. "I mean, Merlin, Eileen, have you any idea…?"

The door to the classroom banged open and Moody burst through, his wand out and expression warlike.

"What happened? I heard screaming. Are you all right?" his scanned the room, taking in the scene of devastation - the scattered desks, the big telescope knocked askew on its stand, the two very dishevelled people standing befuddled in front of him. "Merlin! Who attacked you? Where are they?!"

Albus had begun to pull himself together enough to try and convey something of their predicament without destroying their reputations forever, but Eileen saw that Moody had stopped listening and was staring at an object on the floor a few inches from his false leg.

It was her bra.

The three of them froze for a long minute, staring at the sad, greyish object very much not intended for such intense public scrutiny then Dumbledore was catapulted backwards. He hit the wall at speed with an 'oof' and Moody stormed up to him, snarling in fury.

"_What have you done to her?"_ A flick of his wand had Albus writhing in pain, pinned and helpless.

"Alastor!" shrieked Eileen, casting around for her wand. "Stop it!"

"You look like hell, Snape," spat Moody, brandishing his wand threateningly in the headmaster's face. "Tell me what he did to you! Merlin help me, if he…"

"Expelliarmus!" Eileen found her wand still stuck in the sleeve of her discarded cardigan and disarmed him vigorously. As he clambered, swearing, to his feet she released the ashen-faced Albus from the curse and helped him down from the wall.

"The butterscotch," he moaned.

"The what?" growled Moody, struggling with his new and somewhat uncooperative leg. "How can you still want sweets at a time like this? You've become unhinged. I never thought I would see your fine mind fall apart like this." Eileen spotted the little striped paper bag sitting innocently on the teacher's desk. Perhaps too innocently. Something cold settled in her stomach.

"Are you sure Professor Slughorn sent those butterscotches?" she asked quietly.

"A note came with them. In his handwriting," replied Dumbledore, now looking exhausted and pained in addition to his early rumpled confusion. He checked his pockets, inside out like the rest of his attire and therefore much harder to locate, eventually pulling out a postcard of a Pina Colada with a cocktail umbrella and cherries in it. Taking it, Eileen was struck by how awful it could be, realising that the people one looked up to were fallible and capable of making mistakes, just the same as lesser beings. The Almighty Albus Dumbledore had just made the biggest howler of his career.

"Albus, every Slytherin knows how to forge the Slug's writing," she broke the dreadful news gently.

"Really?" his eyes were round and innocent and Eileen couldn't bear to look at them, or at him, for that matter.

"Of course. To get out of History of Magic, or Prep, or detention, not to mention accessing the parts of the library's restricted section which deal with love potions and bust enlargement. Anyone could have poisoned these sweets and written this note."

"Any Slytherin," corrected Moody, his auror's brain catching up with the conversation immediately.

"Tom Riddle," said Albus grimly.

"Impossible. If Riddle poisoned you, you'd both be dead," said Alastor. Anxiously, all three looked at each other in alarm. Moody performed hasty wellbeing scans on Eileen and Albus while they checked each other's pulses and tried to work out whether their misadventure would yet prove fatal. When all seemed normal, or as normal as possible given the circumstances, Dumbledore sank onto a stool and grew pensive.

"I don't think he meant to kill us. If he had, he would have succeeded, thanks to my utter stupidity this evening. I never thought to question why Horace was sending uncharacteristic gifts during school holidays."

"You have to be constantly vigilant, Albus," put in Moody.

"From now on, we should all be," he acknowledged. "I think that rather than kill me, Riddle meant to discredit me while I was still alive - to destroy my reputation, my career, my life and turn me into a social pariah."

"How?" asked Eileen.

"My dear, the summer term begins in two days' time. I usually share my sweets with the younger visitors to my office."

"Oh, Merlin," gaped Eileen. "He wanted you to have sex with one of the children in your care!"

"Bloody clever," Alastor shook his head.

"Quite brilliant, in fact," admitted Albus. "If I managed to avoid being sent to Azkaban, I certainly would have been forced to leave the country and spend the rest of my days as a despised exile, while my life's achievements were all unpicked or erased from history. Turning me from a legend of goodness into Britain's greatest villain would have been the ultimate revenge. The poor child would have had to suffer horribly too, having simply been used as a weapon against me."

"Thank goodness it was only me," murmured Eileen, after they paused to digest this.

"Don't say that!" cried Moody, seizing both of her hands. "You've both been the victims of an horrific sexual assault this evening! Just because you're not eleven years old doesn't mean this isn't an awful experience to undergo."

Exchanging a furtive glance, Eileen and Albus held each other's gaze long enough to see that they were both thinking the same thing. The flashes of memory they had managed to recall had not been awful at all. Eileen knew she had never experienced such wild passion or given herself over to pleasure with such abandon, although it was very wrong to think so, being a married woman as well as the victim of something so sinister and all her common sense should have left her revolted by what just happened. But as Albus' eye twinkled at her behind Alastor's back, she had to look at her feet to make sure the concerned auror didn't see her twinkling back.

As far as 'awful experiences' went, it had been rather enjoyable, actually.

xxx

Author's note: A few months after I began this story, JK went and told us that Albus was gay. Although I was delighted, I was also slightly annoyed at having to rethink my fic. It was originally going to be a straightforward affair, then I had to add the potion element. Hope it's OK and hasn't upset anyone. Alastor is right, ladies, you must be constantly vigilant, because this potion sadly isn't entirely fictitious. xx


	21. Chapter 21

Recap: Young Tom Riddle's vendetta against Dumbledore began with a simple bag of sweeties spiked with a lust potion. Although his plan was to get Albus sacked and/or arrested for sleeping with a student, Eileen was the one who shared the critical moment up on the Astronomy Tower and so Severus Snape was conceived.

Lucius and Narcissa visited Dobby on McGonagall's instructions and asked him whether he remembered anything about Eileen from his time serving at the Manor as an elfling. Unfortunately, he remembered Abraxas giving the expensive Caboodle's necklace to Eileen and Lucius drew his own conclusion.

xxx

2007

There was nothing here except a series of oddly-shaped lumps no more than two feet high, all covered with sprawling branches of prickly bracken and nettles.

What remained of the gravel path was so overgrown with weeds it could no longer be walked upon. Following the trail with his eye, Lucius could make out the huge, round marble basin of the spectacular fountain which had been white but was now stained green with mildew. He moved closer and peered inside. The once-glorious sculpture of the Malfoy dragon had stood ten feet high and rampant, spouting water on ordinary days and fire on special occasions since the late seventeenth century, but now hundreds of tiny fragments of it lay shattered in five inches of stagnant water.

The Death Eaters had done a thorough job on Malfoy Manor while he was in prison and his wife and son had chosen to fly in the face of everything he had taught them and switch to the Light side.

Something buried amongst the rubble and undergrowth glinted in the summer sun and Lucius carefully picked his way over to it. A fragment of ornate gold picture frame no bigger than his palm with a shred of painted canvas still attached lay entwined with wild ivy and he sighed for the illustrious ancestors whose memorial portraits had all perished along with the house.

"It's just dead wood and fabric," he told himself in an unconvinced whisper. The main thing was that Draco and Narcissa had survived this. Vincent Crabbe's chance eavesdropping of the plan to raze the house to the ground and kill his family for their betrayal of the cause had been the only reason they escaped. The young man had decided his loyalty lay with his friend rather than his supposed master and he was able to warn them just in time.

When news had reached Lucius, in his tiny cell, he had been scandalised at their betrayal. He had sent roaring howlers packed with impotent rage at their stupidity. He had demanded explanations, renunciations; he had disowned Draco and threatened Cissa with terrible vengeance for what appeared to be _their _destruction of everything he held dear. Over time, however, reason had asserted itself. As it slowly became clear that the Dark Lord had no serious intentions for the bettering of society and was merely lashing out against whatever his twisted mind deemed to be unworthy, he found himself hoping his former associates would lose. He realised that his family had been right and he was in the wrong.

Narcissa's letters, patiently explaining the state of play outside of his closed prison began to make sense, rather than simply enraging him. Once the Daily Prophet reported Snape's loyalty to the man he had supposedly murdered and his subsequent rise to power, it dawned on Lucius that his family had been more intelligent than him in choosing the winning side. Perhaps, he had reflected, all was not lost after all.

Why he had chosen this moment of emotional turmoil to make his first visit to the ruins of his ancestral home, he was not certain. The destruction of his new life may have been the trigger which sent him fleeing to the place where he had been born wealthy and grown up great, though Merlin knew there was nothing for his disgraced self to return to now but the weeds and the smashed fountain. Since leaving Azkaban he had built his world around his relationship with Severus, now that had crumbled as absolutely as the ancient stones of the Manor.

His father had fathered Severus. His past, present and future had been swept away with one single conversation.

Each horrifying aspect of this story vied for position as The Worst Part. His father's sworn loyalty to the memory of his mother had been a lie because of the affair with Eileen Prince. Lucius had grown up wishing he had a brother - all along, there had been one hundreds of miles away; growing up poor and underfed, teased for his shabby clothes while his legitimate sibling lived in luxury. Once at School, Severus had suffered as a half-blood Slytherin, occasionally at Lucius' own hand, yet being half Prince, half Malfoy, his blood was a good deal purer than most people's. To his knowledge, Severus had been carrying around the necklace for several days, which must mean that he had known about this and deceived Lucius. He could no longer continue his relationship with the man he loved because it was incestuous.

On reflection, that final point was the worst. There was no way around the fact that the sexual intimacy between the brothers HAD to end. There could be no other conclusion.

The sound of a sharp crack in the still air made the overwrought Lucius wonder for a second whether he had just heard his heart break, until Narcissa's voice said:

"This can't be helpful." He turned to where his ex-wife had apparated into a thick patch of nettles. With her usual effortless elegance, she extricated herself and healed the stings with a mere flick of her wand.

"How did you know where I was?"

"I tried everywhere else," she shrugged.

"Oh," he said.

"Is this the first time you've come here?" she asked, when he didn't elaborate.

"Yes. You?"

"I took a look a few weeks after it happened, just to see that it was really true. Of course, there was no vegetation then, just the debris still sparking here and there from the sheer force of dark magic they'd used to bring it down. I didn't dare get too close."

"All the furniture, the art...?" he posed the question he had been too cowardly to ask for the past two years.

"Destroyed. Although I suspect some of the smaller trinkets made it out in MacNair's pockets."

"Barbarians," he sighed, thinking of the centuries' worth of craftsmanship and talent that had gone into the arrangement of the Manor's decoration; the irreplaceable porcelain, furniture, paintings and sculpture which had enhanced the breathtaking architecture to make the Malfoy family seat the greatest single work of art in wizarding England. Generations of his ancestors had painstakingly assembled the collection by seeking out suitable additions from every corner of the globe, yet Lucius' mistakes had caused the annihilation of the whole lot in a matter of minutes.

"Apparently, the Dark Lord emptied the treasure vaults too," said Narcissa, ignoring his crushed expression in order to have the long overdue conversation which neither had been willing to initiate until now. "It was very costly, sustaining a war for such a long time."

"I know. I'd been bankrolling the Death Eaters for years," confessed Lucius. There was an awkward pause of a few seconds while Narcissa's formidable dignity battled for control over the pulsating urge to strangle her ex-husband with her bare hands. A moment later, with perfect poise and calmness, she asked:

"You gave him the key to our Swiss bank vaults too, didn't you?" Lucius closed his eyes, too ashamed to respond. "The gold we had put aside as a safety net in case the whole Voldemort enterprise went wrong and we had to flee abroad and start again. Your mother's dowry. My inheritance and cases of Black family jewellery. Everything we had earmarked for Draco's future went to him too, I suppose? When we escaped this attack I tried to access the funds but the vaults were all empty and we had nothing but the pearls I was wearing. But for those, we would have starved. No one would take us in because the Dark wanted to kill us and the Light wouldn't trust us, there was only Severus who was still widely suspected himself back then. He did his best of course, which is why we're here now. You gave Tom Riddle _everything_, Lucius."

Bees hummed gently in the weeds around them, a gust of wind rustled the leaves in the distant woods and Lucius stood amongst the shattered remains of Malfoy Manor and silently loathed himself.

"I thought we would win." The hollow excuse sounded contemptible even to his own ears and when Narcissa snorted in response he dared not look at her. "I thought it would all come back tenfold when we seized power and the Dark Lord handed me a major role in government. I thought I was following my father's lead by speculating to accumulate. I thought…I thought things would turn out differently," he finished lamely.

"You fool," she said flatly. When she had rehearsed this conversation in her head on the many many occasions in the past while struggling to re-establish some sort of life for herself and her son, Narcissa had always responded with long, creative strings of insults, biting comments or vicious physical attacks on the man who had betrayed her trust so disastrously. Now, in the actual moment however, there didn't seem to be any point.

She conjured a folding chair and lowered her bulk into it, suddenly quite worn out.

"So what will you do now?" she asked.

"I don't know," he admitted. His new life was built exclusively around Severus Snape, oh Merlin, Severus _Malfoy,_ what a thing to have to enunciate, but that all had to end now. He had the interior design business, so he wasn't completely destitute, but he doubted that the proceeds of that alone would keep him in the style to which he was accustomed. He would have to stay in a hotel tonight and begin looking for somewhere to live in the morning…but what was the use of concerning himself with all these practical matters when HE COULD NO LONGER BE WITH SEVERUS.

"Oh, Cissa," he gasped, burying his face in his hands uselessly. "Oh, shit."

After allowing him a little grief, she folded her arms across her large bosom and spoke briskly.

"I know this has been a shock, but you need to go back to Severus now. You can talk this through and everything will work out."

"I can't!"

"What rubbish," snapped Narcissa.

"He knew about this secret days ago and didn't tell me."

"I daresay you would have done the same if the positions had been reversed. Be practical, for Merlin's sake. One of the most powerful wizards in the country loves you, houses you, supports you, is working towards having you accepted back into polite society…"  
"Cissa, it's _incest!"_ he yelled, trying to make her understand.

"Oh, Lucius, sometimes you really do behave like a silly old queen," she huffed, shaking her head. "You committed much worse acts than that in Voldemort's name. Besides, there's no Malfoy DNA left in him - isn't that what the specialist said? Eileen replaced it all when she took the legitimising potion, so Severus is still technically a Snape and you have nothing to moan about."

"But my father…" Lucius tried to vocalise the nebulous sense of horror he still felt, despite her reminder of the workings of legitimising potion.

"I'm sorry Abraxas turned out to be as flawed as the rest of us," she sighed.

xxx

"Didn't you ever suspect?" asked Snape incredulously. The painted version of the late Albus Dumbledore frowned and shook his head.

"No, fool that I was. Riddle began a violent campaign of attacks against me and people who were known to be close to me after his first attempt failed and I was frantically busy trying to stay alive and warn everyone to be vigilant. When my friend Cassandra Penhallurick - Sybil Trelawney's talented grandmother - was murdered a few months later, I'm afraid your mother took the decision to retire from the wizarding world completely. I thought at the time she lost her nerve, but I see now that you were expected and she couldn't risk either of you being harmed."

"She announced my birth in the Prophet nine months after that night. You never counted? You who has the reputation for being all-knowing, all-seeing..?"

"No. I'm afraid it simply never occurred to me," inside the frame he hung his painted head. "Septimus pointed out the announcement, saying how pleased he was that Eileen must have turned a corner with Tobias Snape if they had had a baby and perhaps their marriage would be all right now…"

"Hmph," said Snape in disagreement. Dumbledore stopped at the sound and grew even more miserable.

"Were you so unhappy as a family?" he asked quietly. Not trusting himself to speak, Snape simply nodded. "Tobias Snape drank, I think?"

"Yes," said Snape.

"But Eileen was a good mother, surely? She was always such a good, brave girl."

Meticulously, Severus tucked a strand of black hair behind his right ear and a strand of grey-streaked black hair behind his left ear, straightened his cravat and each cuff on his tunic, then folded his hands together and laid them neatly in his lap. The little time this fidgeting bought him was not enough to formulate a sufficient response. He guardedly revealed an outline of what he had struggled to conceal all his life.

"I remember her hating the muggle world and feeling trapped in it," he said carefully. "Communities like Spinner's End have very few opportunities for recreation open to them and the greatest free entertainment available to the overworked womenfolk was gossip. They hated anyone who was different. Mum didn't speak like them, though she dressed the same and tried to fit in for a while she never got it quite right and they would laugh at her. My father…Toby, I mean…regretted marrying a witch and took it out on her, then on me as my magic began to show. The local children hated me because I was good at all the muggle school subjects and wouldn't show any interest in sport. There didn't seem much point trying to play cricket once I'd read about Quidditch. It felt like I was perpetually surrounded by bitterness."

"I'm mortified that you had to experience all that," said Albus, the oil-paint tears returning to his eyes. "I wish your mother had come to me for help."

"What would you have done if she had?" Severus asked accusingly, raw from reopening old wounds and beginning to grow angry. "Dragged her back into the Order to risk her life doing your dirty work?"

"Perhaps," he admitted sadly. "But I like to think I would have done something to help you, even without knowing of our relationship. If she'd only told me I had a son, things would have been so different."

"It would have been impossible, if what you say is true," Snape snapped. "With Voldemort actively trying to kill you and your nearest and dearest she had to keep the secret. All our lives would have been in danger had I been seen bouncing on your knee with auburn hair and blue eyes. I would have been the perfect target for every evil deed he could have imagined as a way of getting at you. She had to take the Legitimising potion so my appearance would fool Voldemort as well as Tobias and I suppose she justified our suffering in the muggle world because she knew we would be safe there. Harry Potter's mother sacrificed her life to save her baby, mine did exactly the same." After a pause to clear the lump in his throat, he added in a sneer: "But my mother had to live with her decision every painful day."

Headmistress Sprout's wall clock chimed sixteen minutes past three. The wizard in the chair and the shade of the dead one in the painting looked at each other without speaking for a long time, trying to come to terms with too much information.

"I would like to go home and continue this tomorrow," said Snape eventually. "I need to think."

"As you wish, my dear," said Dumbledore with his sad smile. "Take all the time you need. I only wish I could give you a parting hug."

"Thank Merlin for small mercies," Snape gave a slight smirk, recovering his temper a little.

xxx

------------------

**9****th ****January 1960**

Reeling from exertion and almost delirious from the sustained pain, Eileen wished that her plans hadn't gone so wrong.

She hadn't wanted to have the baby the muggle way. Apart from the increased risk of danger from doing everything without magic, there was the small matter of trying to explain why she had been screaming "Oh, Merlin" instead of "Oh, God". Whenever the pain had permitted rational thought, she had tried to swear instead. Thankfully, certain words were the same in both muggle and magical worlds. Most worrying of all, of course, was what the muggles would say if she accidentally blew the glass out of the windows with uncontrolled pushes of magic.

After laying such careful plans for getting herself to St Mungo's and explaining to the bewildered Toby that he would be visited by an owl carrying a message tied to his leg, which would tell him about the birth and what to do next, it was real bad luck that she had been in the butcher's with Mrs Whitehouse when her waters broke. The old bag had grabbed hold of Eileen with a grim sort of glee and marched her home up Spinner's End, hollering to every Scoursby female within a mile radius that the Snapes' first was on its way. After that, she had been trapped. For the duration of the twenty-hour nightmare, most of the experienced mothers in the town had dropped in to partake of the enjoyment, braving the snow blizzard which set in as darkness fell in order to hang around the house in gossipy clusters, criticising her cleaning skills and swapping horror stories about childbirth. She hadn't been alone for even the ten seconds it would have taken to summon and gulp down a painkilling potion from under the damn bed.

Now, it was six o'clock in the morning, still dark outside and the snow, Mrs Arkwright reported as she hurried over from number 34 wearing her husband's overcoat over her nightdress, was already four inches deep.

Mrs Pigg said: "here we go!" There was a collective cry of triumph from the other women, then a tiny wail of confusion, then the last thought to cross Eileen's mind before she blacked out was hoping that the Legitimising potion had worked.

--

"See, I told you she'd only be out for a minute," tutted Mrs Arkwright. "Our Janice were the same wi' the twins."

Eileen wondered for a wild moment why her bedroom was so full of people.

"Good job too. We'd never get that daft young doctor to come out to Spinner's End in this weather," commented Mrs Pigg with disapproving scowl. "Now, here, Eileen." A blanket was thrust at the young witch and she found herself staring down at her newborn child.

Relief made Eileen momentarily giddy once more. The baby boy had every appearance of being healthy. He wriggled and made baby noises. He did not appear to have suffered any ill effects from the dark potion she had inflicted upon him months ago when he was so tiny - at least, there were the requisite number of limbs and digits and just the one head, which was a start. Best of all…

"He certainly looks just like his dad, poor little tyke!" cackled Mrs Pigg. Eileen grinned in exhausted delight, knowing that, mercifully, wonderfully, thankfully for everyone concerned her elderly neighbour _was dead wrong about that._ Mrs Pigg beckoned the others over. "Have a look at this nose!"

"It's the perfect nose," beamed Eileen, gently stroking her fingertip along it. Thanks to that nose, Tobias Snape would never know the boy was not his and no one in Scoursby could invent gossip to make him think otherwise. Albus Dumbledore would never discover that after the incident with Tom Riddle's sex potion he was now a father and try to start meddling in their lives. Most importantly of all, Riddle would never suspect the child to be anything other than the pathetic half-blood product of the union between a blood-traitor and a muggle. The evil wizard would have no reason to seek such a child out. The child of his almighty Nemesis, however, would be another matter. A child publicly known to be a Dumbledore would be the target for all manner of unpleasant attention. If he survived the inevitable attempts by Riddle at kidnap and murder in order to weaken his famous father, he would have to contend with everyone in the wizarding world, including his Hogwarts classmates, knowing that he was the bastard of a celebrated homosexual centenarian ex-war hero and a married teenage witch.

Eileen shuddered and held the baby tighter. Taking Legitimising Potion had been the right thing to do under the circumstances, she was certain of it now. She had wondered over the past few months, as doubts about her rash decision began to foment, whether it would have been better to end her disappointing marriage to Toby and let Dumbledore and his international network of adoring fans take care of everything. It would have been a luxurious life, she never doubted that. The old man was wealthy and would have doted on his child, but as Riddle's attempts on Albus' life became more ingenious, she decided that she simply could not have risked her precious baby being caught in the crossfire between the two powerful wizards. Exploding bowling balls, poisoned letters, the rogue bludger at a Wimbourne Wasps match he went to watch and whatever other attacks there had been on Albus since she resigned from her role as a spy and severed ties with his life - these were enough to make Eileen long for the safety of the muggle world. For all the petty dullness of Scoursby, the family would be far from magical wars here.

Snape was a good, anonymous name. When the child turned up at school in eleven years' time, he would walk into the Great Hall with no expectations hanging over his head, free to be sorted into any of the four houses without provoking comment, where he could then grow into his own personality. A young boy named Dumbledore, however, would have his every move watched, judged and criticised. How could anyone grow up in the shadow of such a famous father?

Stroking that precious nose again, Eileen ignored the giggles of the women. She had done a great thing for this child in giving him a new identity. He would be sure to have a wonderful life.

xxx

Author's note: Thanks for waiting. It's been another busy summer! x


	22. Chapter 22

Recap:

2007 - Severus has finally found out the truth about Tom Riddle's potion attack on Dumbledore which resulted in his conception on Hogwarts' astronomy tower. Lucius believes his own father, Abraxas, had an affair with Eileen and that Severus is his illegitimate half-brother.

1960s/70s - Tom Riddle is still in exile, unable to set foot in Britain because he is wanted for the murder of Fanda Mabberly, still plotting to bring down his Nemesis, Dumbledore.

**2007**

"Master Malfoy?"

"No, Peggy, for the umpteenth time, I do _not_ need any help, so please go away." Lucius magically extended the suitcase one more time and tossed in his favourite dressing gown. The house-elf's wince at his poor packing skills annoyed him so much he upended the box of cufflinks and scattered them anyhow over the rest of his clothing, just to cause her extra discomfort. The petty act would only cause him more problems in the long run, but he was hurting and just wanted to spread that pain around in any way he could.

"It's not that, Master. There is a visitor," said Peggy, clenching her hands together behind her back at the sight of mess in the suitcase.

"I don't care," said Lucius. "What happened to that amazing elf-sense today? This is a traumatic moment, Peggy. I am leaving my lover due to horrible circumstances beyond either of our control. My life has fallen apart, I am heartbroken with nowhere to go and you expect me to observe social niceties?"

"Sorry, Master. It's the DNA professor. She has flooed all the way from California."

"Who?" snapped Lucius, too wrapped up in his own misery to care.

"It's me, Jean Heelicks! Hi, Loo-shus!" Wizard and elf swung round to see her standing in the bedroom doorway, clutching several rolls of parchment and a large piece of cardboard.

"Lucy-us," he corrected automatically.

"Huh?"

"In this country, my name is pronounced Lucy-us," his hissed, icily.

"Oh, tomayto-tomarto," she dismissed the complaint with a muggle reference that was completely lost on her audience and entered the room, dropping her paperwork on the bed and rummaging through it. "Is Severus here? My team and I have been working non-stop on his case and have come up with some fascinating information."

Lucius' stomach clenched at this reminder of why his sweet new post-Azkaban life had come crashing down. If only the Ministry hadn't collected everyone's DNA for its stupid security project; if only this woman hadn't discovered that legitimising potion had been used to cover up Eileen and Abraxas' little mistake then they could have continued living in happy ignorance. As things stood, the idea of seeing his half-brother made him feel physically ill, yet so did the idea of never seeing Severus again. The only plan he had managed to form was to run away from all the confusion and hope he could come to terms with everything from a safe distance.

Severus was a good man. Hopefully, he would be able to recover from losing Lucius, in time. He was powerful and wealthy now and would have no trouble finding a new partner - ideally one who wasn't a blood relation.

"If you take a look at this diagram," Professor Heelicks waved a parchment covered in chemical formulae in his face. He closed the suitcase lid and buckled it as tight as it would go, then cast a featherlight charm and lifted it off the bed. Heelicks was still babbling incomprehensible things as he pushed past her and headed for the living room fireplace. Peggy threw herself at his feet and her bony fingers wrapped around his ankle.

"Don't go, Master!" she sobbed.

"We've been through this, Peggy. I can't stay," he told her.

"I'll come with you! I can't stay with that half-blood arriviste! I was raised to serve proper wizards who were born to rule, like you, Master, not ill-bred liberals who used to be _teachers!_ And he eats that cheap red sauce with every meal. It's a disgrace."

"Peggy, let go of my ankle, please, and I absolutely forbid you to speak about Severus in this way."

With all the confusion, no one heard the floo flare and Snape stepped into the living room to see Lucius and Peggy looking first shocked then guiltily avoiding his eyes. Before he had time to speak to them, or wonder what was going on, Professor Heelicks marched in from the bedroom with her papers and commanded his attention.

"Ah, Severus. You'll be delighted with what my team and I have been working on for the last few days. It really is remarkable!"

"Madam, I have had a very trying day," he passed his hand over his brow. "Perhaps you could owl me your findings later."

"But look!" With a flourish, the American witch pulled out the large piece of card she had been carrying and proudly displayed it for inspection. Lucius, Severus and Peggy studied the portrait of a middle-aged wizard for a few moments. He looked vaguely familiar.

"Who is that?" asked Severus, when no explanation was forthcoming.

"It's you!" exclaimed Professor Heelicks, beaming.

"Looks nothing like him," sneered Peggy, still on the floor.

"We have been researching the DNA sample we were given - it's been absolutely fascinating witnessing the successful results of an actual Legitimising Potion and having a chance to examine the way in which the genes of your mother and your non-biological father meshed. This is a completely unique opportunity for study. You have helped us so much in our work we thought we would put together this portrait using the minute traces we have managed to uncover of you real father's genetic signature."

"There are still traces of his biological father's DNA?" Lucius blanched. "I thought you said last time that they were all wiped out by the potion and replaced with Tobias Snape's?"

"That is true. Genetically speaking, you are still half-Snape and have been since shortly after your conception. What we have done is spotted which areas have been altered by the potion - um, imagine it like looking for old scars - and compiled a profile of how you would have looked, if you had remained the offspring of your real father and not been artificially made to look like Mr Snape."

"I still don't understand," said Severus.

"You will. Just look!" She brandished the picture once more.

The magical sketch looked out at Lucius and Severus rather quizzically. This other-Severus still had a narrow face and his lips were still thin. However, his mid-brown hair was much thicker and the brown eyebrows had a rounder shape, making the eyes, still Eileen's intelligent black eyes, seem less intense. His nose was still long, but very straight and well formed and the overall appearance of him was much less pinched and sharp.

"I'm almost…handsome," murmured Snape, incredulously. The picture smiled and its black eyes twinkled.

"This is ridiculous," Lucius folded his arms across his chest. "That thing isn't you and it isn't handsome." Snape ignored him, staring as though mesmerised at the person he was supposed to have been.

"She needn't have worried about the auburn hair," he thought of his mother, desperate to conceal his identity as the child of Albus Dumbledore. "Or the blue eyes. I didn't have either of those. I had his nose, though."

"What?" Lucius took a closer look. "Nonsense. That's not a Malfoy nose!" Severus turned his head to look at his lover.

"Of course it isn't. Why would it be?"

Lucius realised he was still holding the suitcase. Like the coward he was, he had hoped to avoid the incest-related conversation by fleeing before Severus got home, thus sparing both of them the agony of the inevitable break-up talk. Unfortunately, it now appeared that they would have to have it after all, with the added humiliation of an audience. He set down the case, bringing it to Snape's attention for the first time.

"What are you doing with that suitcase?" he asked.

"He's going!" howled Peggy, clutching at Lucius' legs again. "Don't let him! Make him stay with us, Master!"

"Quiet!" ordered Lucius, giving her a push with his foot.

"You're leaving me?" Snape kept his words even, repressing the scream that was threatening to break loose with an heroic effort of will. Not trusting his own voice, Lucius nodded once and looked at the carpet. "Why? What have I done?"

Finally spotting that something other than her precious research was occurring, Professor Heelicks muttered something about visiting an old friend at the Institute of Master Potioners and departed, leaving her gift leaning against the sofa.

"I'm sorry, Severus," said Lucius quietly. "It's not you. It's this business. I know our relationship shouldn't be any different since we found out, that your father's identity shouldn't bother me."

"But it does," Snape filled in curtly.

"I'm afraid so."

"I see." Snape struggled to keep his face neutral. "May I ask how you found out? I can't imagine Moody telling you willingly. I practically had to curse the information out of him."

"McGonagall suggested that Dobby the elf knew, so Narcissa and I spoke to him, although," Lucius frowned, "I've no idea what any of this had to do with that old Scottish bag."

"Minerva and Albus were very close. So she may have suspected something, but I don't understand how the elf was involved."

"Dobby was born and raised at Malfoy Manor too. You mentioned Dumbledore - do you think he was involved in this somehow?"

Snape went very still as he digested Lucius' words. He glanced down at Peggy, still kneeling on the carpet and staring avidly up at them, hanging on every word as she tried to make sense of it. Although his every instinct from his days as a spy, a teacher and the later years in Magical Law Enforcement told him to say nothing and let his opponent fill the silence with incriminating babble, he decided there was simply too much at stake to play games today.

"Lucius, Albus Dumbledore was my father."

"Please don't try to lie to me, Severus," Lucius shook his head with distaste. "I found the Caboodle's necklace you've been carrying around for days and Dobby confirmed where it came from. I know that your father was also my father and I'm afraid that I can't continue our relationship in light of that fact."

A loud, rich laugh erupted from Snape's throat, followed by another, then a bubbling stream of delighted hilarity, such as the world had never heard from those stern lips. Understanding and relief made him giddy and he reached out and laid his hands on the startled Malfoy's shoulders.

"You're wrong!" he gasped, between guffaws. "For a while I thought it might have been Abraxas too, then I discovered it was definitely Albus!"

Wanting to believe him but still wary, Lucius put his hands on his lover's waist.

"It's just not possible. Dumbledore couldn't have had a son, he was gay."  
"So are you, Louche, and you've got one!" exclaimed Snape and roared with laugher again. Lucius scowled.

"I still don't understand. The age difference between Eileen and Dumbledore was immense. How on earth…?"

While the couple were so intently focussed on each other, a smirking Peggy took the opportunity to drag Lucius' suitcase back to the bedroom and unpack it, tutting at the mess he had made of his belongings. She straightened the creases and replaced everything in its proper location as quickly as she could. She had a suspicion that the masters would soon require the bed and her absence.

xxx

**1968**

Eileen could have healed the bruise, but leaving it on show meant that she had a good excuse not to attend court that morning. Toby's lawyer had said the counsel for the prosecution would be sure to notice and point out to the jury that the wife of the accused was sporting a black eye, urging them to conclude that if he was capable of hitting his wife he was certainly capable of breaking a man's jaw, nose and three of his ribs in a brawl after a football match.

Taking advantage of Toby's absence, she tucked her wand inside her sleeve and hurried up the road to the pawnbrokers. If she could retrieve the necklace Abraxas had given her, then she could apparate to a jewellers in Leeds, sell it for a great sum of money, come back to Scoursby, get Severus out of primary school and leave this miserable life behind forever. Where they would go, she was not yet sure, but it would be somewhere far away.

It had taken a long time to come to the conclusion that there were worse things than living in fear of Tom Riddle.

She reached Blackstock's and felt a thrill as she spotted the precious emerald and diamond pendant glittering through the heavily barred window, incongruous amongst by the electric toasters, christening mugs and leather jackets of other down-at-heel Scoursby folk. There was no chance of raising enough money to reclaim the necklace the legal way, so, after checking that no one was watching, she tried summoning it. Nothing happened. For a panicked second, Eileen imagined that her magic had somehow faded through lack of use. She tried a shoe cleaning spell as a test and her old brown boots immediately shone. Reassured, she tried a stronger summoning charm and was flabbergasted when the burglar alarm bell on the outside of the shop began to ring.

"Thief! Magical thief!" the gravely voice of Mr Blacktock began shouting from inside the shop and she disapparated away in horror before he could run out and recognise her.

How was it possible that the most miserable pawnbroker in the miserable muggle town of Scoursby knew about magic? Eileen re-appeared in her kitchen and sat down heavily in a chair. When she had given up the necklace, she now realised, neither Mr nor Mrs Blackstock had questioned the brand engraved on the box. Caboodle's was a wizarding jewellers unknown in the muggle world, yet the old woman had calmly written the name down in the ledger along with the large sum they considered the precious stones to be worth. Evidently, the family had some knowledge of the world she had abandoned and had protected their premises accordingly.

Letting her head fall into her hands, she winced as her palm pressed against the bruised eye. Her escape plan had failed and now the only way she could get herself and her son away from the pathetic little life she had chosen would be to approach Albus for money and hope he didn't have her arrested when she revealed the highly illegal use of prohibited Legitimising Potion. It was a great risk, but if she did end up in Azkaban, at least the old hypocrite would look after their son for the rest of his life.

His life.

Eileen only purchased the Daily Prophet sporadically, checking every few months for major developments in the wizarding world, particularly those concerning Tom Riddle and Albus Dumbledore. There was a secret pile of newspapers underneath her bed, the older ones of which mentioned attempts to kill Albus. In his quotes he laughed them off as pranks or accidents, but Eileen understood the situation better than the average Prophet reader. The old man's life might not last much longer - one of these assassination attempts was bound to work sooner or later. Without his real father's protection, the eight year-old Severus Dumbledore would be in terrible danger. Keeping his identity secret was still the safest option, which, unfortunately, meant remaining in Scoursby with the increasingly vile and violent Tobias Snape.

Utterly defeated, Eileen had to content herself with hoping that Toby was found guilty and put behind bars for a good long stretch.

xxx

**1978**

_**OBITUARY**_

_**Abraxas Malfoy, 1935 - 1978**_

_Draco Abraxas Mosley Malfoy was born at the ancestral home of his family in Wiltshire on 1__st__ March 1935, the second child and only son of former Minister of Magic Marcellus Malfoy and fashion model Vivicia Parkinson, who became a household name as the face of Honeydukes' 'Fairy Silk' chocolates._

_After a distinguished school career, Abraxas (as he was always known) left Hogwarts with ten OWLS, four NEWTS, several Quidditch trophies and a Head Boy's badge. Rather than follow in his father's footsteps by immediately entering the Ministry, he embarked on a series of educational tours of Europe and the Far East and it was on the last of these that he met Lucretia Spungen. Daughter of the famous Swiss couple who belied their country's neutrality to fight so fearlessly against the deadly reign of Grindelwald on the Continent, Lucretia, as their first-born, was cursed to die in childhood by the Dark Wizard. Sterling efforts by her parents and their friends resulted in the creation of potions to stay the effect of the malediction, however it was known to be only a temporary reprieve._

_In direct contravention of his parents' wishes, Abraxas and the unfortunate Lucretia were married in her native Zurich at Christmas 1954 after a whirlwind courtship. She never fully recovered her health following the birth of their son Lucius a year later and died in 1958 at the age of 24._

_Widowed at 23, Malfoy ensured that life went on. Taking control of the family finances when his father was declared insane following the infamous 'Octopus Incident', he worked hard to increase the value of the already extensive Malfoy estates in Wiltshire, Dorset and Tuscany, later becoming a special advisor to the magi-treasury on fiscal policy. One of his more enjoyable investments was the Wimbourne Wasps Quidditch team, which he owned from 1967 - 1973 then sold at tremendous profit to an anonymous investor from the Middle East. Wasps fans will still occasionally chant the ditty "Viva Malfoy's Army"._

_Non-profitmaking commitments included governorship of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, ten years as secretary of the Society for Distressed Gentlewizards and membership of the controversial and short-lived League of British Purebloods, which was forcibly disbanded in 1975 for distributing literature likely to cause a breach of the peace._

_Abraxas contracted the deadly Dragon Pox shortly after his son's lavish marriage to society beauty Narcissa Black and finally succumbed in the early hours of Monday morning after a brave five week battle. He never remarried and is survived by his father in the closed ward of St Mungo's and his only son. (Editor's note: Although Lucius also fell ill with the virus, he is making excellent progress and is expected to make a full recovery.)_

_The funeral will take place once Malfoy Manor is no longer a quarantine zone, hopefully sometime soon after Solstice. No flowers please. Donations In Memoriam to the Society for Distressed Gentlewizards, c/o Gringott's, Diagon Alley._

Lord Voldemort laid down the three day old copy of the Daily Prophet and calmly poured more coffee.

It had been the right thing to do, he knew that for certain. He was finally powerful and learned enough in the Dark Arts to return to Britain and fulfil his destiny using the powerful new identity he had created. The only thing standing in his way had been Abraxas, who knew too much, or rather, who had known Tom Riddle too well.

There had been too much at stake to risk his life's work for the sake of an outdated school friendship so Malfoy had had to die.

Now that Abraxas was gone, he would need to cultivate another source of finance, for in order to stand any chance of success he would need a great deal of money. He summoned parchment, ink and a quill and began a letter.

_Dear Lucius,_

_Please forgive the familiar form of address, which will soon be explained. The last time we met you were three years old and wearing pyjamas. My name is Lord Voldemort and I was an associate of your late father in certain important and clandestine matters…_

xxx


	23. EPILOGUE

Author's note: I know everyone's forgotten what happened in the story, but I have been totally blocked and unable to write anything for over a year now (real life issues, argh), so am delighted to finally to have got this written and posted. I can never resist an epilogue. Thanks for reading.

xxx

**2008**

"This is your idea of _a few close friends_, is it?" whispered Snape, nervously fingering the lightning-bolt scar on his cheek.

"I don't know why you're blaming me," Malfoy hissed back. "You're a public figure, word got around."

"There's hundreds of them!"

"The chamber only holds fifty," Lucius tried to reassure him.

"What about all of those waiting outside?"

"Thank you, gentlemen," said the registrar. "Now, if your first witness would like to sign here? Would you mind trying not to get the book wet, sir, this is an official document."

Hagrid blew his nose with an ear-splitting hoot and mopped up his tears with a huge handkerchief before taking the quill and writing his name as neatly as he could. Snape smiled to himself. The letter Hagrid had written the day after they questioned him about Eileen had been so touching that Snape had read and re-read it countless times, revelling in the idea that someone was proud of him and his achievements. _I know I'm not your father and you don't need one either but if you ever did…_

Hagrid hadn't exactly walked him down the aisle, but he had been the first person to spring to mind when Severus was told that the Civil Partnership ceremony required two witnesses. Judging by the murmur now circulating around the room, it was an unexpected choice but Snape didn't care. There had been few people in his life who had taken an interest in him. If Hagrid wanted to be kind and avuncular now, he was going to be encouraged.

"Second witness, please. Mrs Shacklebolt?" prompted the registrar. Tonks handed the baby to Kingsley, tripped over the toy train another of their brood had left on the floor, clutched onto Arthur to stop herself falling, who then stumbled against Narcissa, knocking her huge flowery hat off. As everyone righted themselves, a little Shacklebolt shouted, "silly Mummy!", Tonks said "Sorry, Auntie Cissa, I've crushed your chrysanthemums," and one of the Weasleys said "Ouch, sounds painful."

"Why Tonks?" mouthed Snape to Lucius, who grinned and whispered into his ear;

"Solidarity. We politicians' other halves need to stick together. Besides, I can't forget she kept us out of prison when the DNA thing first came to light. She's on our side."

The registrar said a few more words and suddenly, before either of them had chance to reflect on the whirlwind of the morning, they were married and walking out of the chamber arm in arm, to great applause.

"Oh, Merlin," said Snape, as the doors opened and the crowd waiting outside clapped and stared and took photographs.

"Stop scowling," Lucius nudged him, unable to suppress his own delight. An unknown tall woman in a blue satin dress threw confetti over them and Colin Creevey blinded them with his camera flash and shouted:

"How about a kiss for the cover of the Daily Prophet?"

"How about a cauliflower instead of a head?" Snape snarled back, as Lucius pulled him into a hug so tight he couldn't pull his wand on the unfortunate photographer.

The reception had to be moved from the small salon they had booked at the Ministry into the grandeur of the Barnabus Ballroom, as apparently half the witches and wizards of Britain had turned up to gawp at the newlyweds. The free champagne was not exactly encouraging them to leave, either. Lucius had to remind himself that although many people they knew had come wished them well, a surprisingly large number, most of the strangers were curious to be part of the landmark event. He was an ex-felon, ex-Death Eater and infamous scoundrel, Severus was a war hero and powerful head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Since they were only the third same-sex magical couple to have tied the knot and the first _celebrities_ to ever do so, there had been considerable interest ever since the publishing of the banns two weeks previously. Thankfully, there had been only a few negative comments and these had been pushed out of his mind by warm words of congratulation from people who mattered. The young woman who had thrown confetti was making her way towards him. She was tall and slim with pretty light brown hair and although there was something familiar about her, Lucius was on his guard just in case this stranger had come to attack him.

"Hi, Dad," she said.

Lucius stared.

The face was definitely Draco's, but subtly beautified with make-up and framed by delicate curls, which somehow took away any trace of masculinity from his jaw. His satin dress was flatteringly cut and although his shoes were flat to prevent him being excessively tall, they were pointed and very elegant. Under this scrutiny, Draco had begun to fiddle nervously with his perfectly-matched clutch bag and Lucius realised he was required to speak.

"You look nice," he tried.

Draco smiled shyly and exhaled a breath he had obviously been holding for some time.

"Do you think so?" he looked into his father's eyes as though the response was desperately important.

"Of course," said Lucius, not quite recovered from the shock of seeing his son dressed as a woman. "Um. I didn't recognise you earlier. I thought you hadn't come."

"Sorry I was late. I got cold feet as I was leaving and by the time I got to the hall it was full and I had to wait outside with the gawkers. I was worried you might be upset about me choosing your wedding as my first public appearance, er, like _this_," he looked at his manicured fingernails for a moment. "Are you?"

"No!" said Lucius a fraction louder than was necessary. "No. Not at all. I just had no idea that you are…that you do…you like to…"

"I've been doing this at home for about a year now," Draco explained. "After everything that's happened to our family and to the world I grew up in, I've spent a long time trying to figure out who I am and I…well, I think I've finally found out."

"I had no idea," Lucius repeated, voice thick with emotion. The disgrace and disaster of the Malfoy family had clearly had an impact on Draco. Having raised him to arrogantly flaunt his name and believe that he would be wealthy and successful forever without having to try, Lucius had then destroyed everything and left Draco penniless and ashamed of his existence. However, the boy had shown surprising courage in choosing to support the opposite side during the war because he believed in their cause; had trained as a healer in order to earn his own living while doing something worthwhile. Now it appeared that he had looked deep within himself and had found the confidence to express what he had discovered. Lucius felt like weeping. Fortunately, before he did so, Severus appeared and assessed the situation in less than a second.

"You look charming today, Draco," he said smoothly. "Certainly more glamorous than any St Mungo's staff I've ever met, although that's not much of a compliment."

"Thank you," Draco bowed his head, smiling.

"It seems you've inherited your mother's fine sense of style."

"Actually, she helped my choose the dress."

A few glasses of good champagne later, the room was blurring pleasantly. Draco, Lucius concluded, was looking radiant, confident and all sorts of other positive things he hadn't looked for years, laughing heartily with his friends the rock stars while channelling the poise and grace of his mother. If Gregory, Vincent and Millicent were at all surprised by his new-found transvestism, they weren't showing it. But then, they were all displaying a startling uniform of make-up, hairspray and skin-tight leather so weren't terribly well placed to make adverse comments. Their manager, that irrepressible busybody, Granger, appeared to be locked in deadly verbal combat with the ugliest Weasley, while Potter stood just out of range of stray hexes, looking not unlike a dyspeptic owl. Lucius followed his baleful stare to the Weasley girl, apparently back from her sporting convalescence in America, restored to health and possibly stuck with sticking potion to a huge, muscular, tanned Quodpot player with a square head and vacant expression.

"We're getting married in the National Quod Bowl next Fall," she gushed. The glass in Potter's hand shattered. "We've gotten special permission as Brad is the most popular player the Comets have ever had! He has more sponsorship deals than anyone else in the league right now." The glass in Potter's spectacles shattered.

"Harry shouldn't worry," murmured a Scottish voice behind Lucius. "The so-called Blazin' Bradley will fly straight back across the Atlantic once he's met the twins. Congratulations on your marriage," said McGonagall, without warmth. "Break Severus' heart and I shall transfigure you into a flobberworm. Very. Very. Slowly." Lucius swallowed at the mental image. "Do we understand each other?"

"Perfectly, madam."

"Good." McGonagall turned to go but he stopped her.

"Wait. I never worked out how you knew that Dobby had information about Eileen Snape last year. It was through Dumbledore, I suppose. Were you working for the Order back then too?"

"No. I knew she was often at Malfoy Manor around that time, that's all," she peered at him over her pince-nez. "Matilda McGonagall's portrait told me."

"Who?"  
Minerva smirked. "Our mutual ancestor, Mr Malfoy. Matilda McGonagall, who married Sir Hugo de Malfoy. There's not much remaining from the time when my family's home was the grandest building in Scotland aside from Hogwarts, we've been on the slow slide for centuries, but I do still have her portrait. She didn't occupy it much until Malfoy Manor was destroyed; now she's there permanently and complains all day about being in reduced circumstances unless I cover her with a blanket."

"Matilda escaped the attack!"

"She was an intelligent woman. Once she saw the place was coming down she fled from the portrait in your home to the one in mine."

"So not all the family's history perished," he murmured, remembering the miserable sight of the weed-covered rubble which was all that remained of the ancestral seat.

"Take her if you wish. She might like hanging on the wall of your Ministry accommodation better than my cottage."

"I'd love to, if you're sure…?"

"Certainly. Call it a wedding present." Minerva turned to go. "Oh, before I forget. When are you coming to completely redesign my décor?"

"What?" Lucius blinked.

"The kitchen looks so beautiful after you jazzed it up, it makes the rest of the house look shabby. Very cunning business sense, you wretched Slytherin. Well, when? After the honeymoon?"

"Severus' job means there isn't time for a honeymoon."

"Excellent. In that case I'll expect you on Monday morning.

Mad-eye Moody was working, but nevertheless found the time to stump down to the ballroom, shake Snape's hand and glare suspiciously at Lucius. Other MLE personnel made brief appearances, those who were on duty, Severus noticed, inventing a number of interesting ways to sneak glasses of champagne while they thought he wasn't looking. He asked Cho if she wouldn't mind asking Supplies to send a batch of sobering potion to the MLA offices in case of emergency and was informed, with a withering look, that it had been taken care of the previous day.

"That was good forward planning, Cho. Thank you."

"It's what I'm paid to do," she said tightly, stalking off after nodding to Kingsley, who had drifted over to them holding a sleeping child.

"This isn't a good time for what I'm about to say and I apologise," said Kingsley quietly, "I wanted you and Arthur to be the first to know."

"Please don't tell me Tonks is pregnant again," Snape rolled his eyes.

"Actually, we've decided four is enough thank you," Kingsley chuckled then grew serious. "This does concern the family, though. The huge responsibility of being Minister of Magic means I'm missing out on too much of the children's lives and I don't want it to continue. I feel like a bad father."

Throat suddenly dry, Snape drained his glass.

"And Arthur and I need to know this because...?"

"I'll be announcing my resignation tomorrow afternoon."

"You can't!" Snape was scandalised. "You're the best minister we've had for decades and the best person for the job. It would be terrible to lose you so soon."

"The decision is made," he said firmly. "Whatever nonsense they print in the Prophet, the election of my replacement is going to be a two-horse race between you and Weasley, so if I were you I'd begin quietly canvassing support here and now, while you have a friendly and not to mention a tipsy audience."

"Have you made the same suggestion to him?" asked Severus, curling his lip.

"No. Nymphadora pointed out that he's not a leader, for all that he's a nice bloke. We believe he would struggle with the hard decisions a politician is sometimes called upon to make for the Greater Good and might cause long-term problems by being too soft. You can distance yourself in order to get the job done. He is a popular man but we'll be voting for you and we won't be the only ones."

"He's a well-respected family man. I just married a..," he looked around and lowered his voice, "I'm married to a convicted ex-Death Eater. I was a Death Eater myself. Lucius and I have _killed_ people."

"Well, you can mention that in your campaign if you like," Kingsley smiled, raising an eyebrow. "But if I were you I'd concentrate on your heroic war record and Malfoy's being a reformed sinner. Get lots of photos taken clearly showing your scar and him looking handsome and penitent. You could even mention your biological father. That has to be worth a few votes."

"But…"

The baby in Shacklebolt's arms woke up and began to wail.

"Time for a feed, I think. Excuse us," he smiled and glided off serenely through the crowd, as though he hadn't just turned Snape's life completely upside down.

"But…" Snape said again, to no one this time. Being Minister of Magic was an impossible job - trying to keep the complicated affairs of country running in the face of incessant criticism, lobbying, whingeing, cost-cutting and the occasional bout of national hysteria, all within a fiddly bureaucratic framework dating back over a thousand years. The positive side was that Snape would finally be in charge of his world and be able, to an extent, at least, right some of the wrongs and tackle the issues which those in charge had been screwing up for centuries. He had already made great progress with the department of Law Enforcement, so why not the whole Ministry? If Shacklebolt had done the job and honestly thought him, Snape, capable of it, then he should at least try to be elected. For the Greater Good? Perhaps. As long as Cho Chang came with him, of course, without her ruthless and ill-tempered efficiency he wouldn't last two hours.

Lucius spotted his new husband standing alone for the first time that day and hurried over, giving him a kiss.

"What a day!" he exclaimed. "Merlin, it's been one thing after another!"

"Are you all right?" Severus recovered from his musings and noticed Lucius' flushed face and hectic eyes.

"Wonderful, thank you," he beamed. "I'm very happy."

"Good," said Snape.

"Yes, it's so exciting, finally being married to you! I'm in a bit of a daze, though. I'll be glad when everything quietens down and goes back to normal. Have you given any thought to my suggestion of reducing your hours at work? Perhaps delegating some of your responsibility? Wouldn't it be nice to spend more time together? Neither of us are getting any younger, you know."

Tracing the raised flesh of his scar, Severus tried to smile reassuringly. He needed to discuss Shacklebolt's words with Lucius in private, although, knowing him as well as he did, the discussion would not need to be long. Lucius would be unable to resist the possibility of wielding such great power, even at the cost of their private life.

"Ugh, look at Weasley," said Lucius with distaste.

"Which one?"

"Arthur. He's got his hand on Narcissa's bottom. I'm not allowed to touch your bottom in public and it's our wedding day."

"I imagine," began Severus carefully, "That you wouldn't mind having an opportunity to, ah, shall we say, _fight_ Weasley. Have a bit of a contest with him, try to defeat him in some way?"

"Merlin, yes. That man irritated me for years even before he began shagging my wife while I was in prison. I nearly punched his lights out in Flourish and Blott's once. I'd love to have another go at him," Lucius realised he was clutching his wand and stopped. "Why do you ask?"

"I'll tell you later." Snape smiled a dangerous smile and, in the black depths of his eyes, something twinkled.

xxx

Really The End.


End file.
